STREWING: MINECRAFT

So, we've been playing a lot of Minecraft around here. By we I mostly mean River, but it does rub off on everyone. Violet really likes to sing the song TNT, for example.  There is a fair amount of staring at the computer, but it's not just staring at the computer (it pretty much never is). We get huge murals of the Minecraft creatures on a near-daily basis, for one thing. We've also delved into Minecraft papercraft, and James even helped River make a couple of creatures from wood.

Since everything in Minecraft is made of blocks, lego is another very compatible medium. There is an official lego Minecraft set, but because the price went up so quickly, we've decided to stick with simpler lego tutorials for now. River even made a video of his own to show his creations! (We've discovered that you can buy legos by the piece if there are particular blocks you're missing.) River also likes to create things in the game itself. He's used tutorials like this one to teach himself to build epic sculptures of mobs like the skeleton, which involve a lot of memorization, digital navigation and general spatial skills.

Since the blocks in Minecraft are perfectly regular it's pretty hard to avoid the math implications, beginning with measuring length, width and height in block units. River often comes up with multiplication questions based on problems like "how many blocks do you need to make four legs that are three units tall?" As my mom pointed out, they are a lot like the cubes often used as manipulatives in math classes. I wanted to link to some Minecraft math demonstrations, but there are so many that it's hard to choose. Here's a search for "Minecraft math" with some interesting links, but the best bet would probably be to search for a topic of particular interest like addition - for example, this addition gate combines Minecraft, math, and basic programming concepts.

There is actually a lot of computer and tech stuff in Minecraft play. River has built some pretty impressive double-switched gates and similar machines, which I don't even completely understand. James likes to point out that he (River) has learned most of what he knows about Minecraft from other kids, both in person and on Youtube videos. Just last week we logged on to a server with other local homeschoolers, who were able to help us figure out the rules of the social game, while River was thrilled to get a  chance to share some of his technical knowledge. We're thinking of checking out the Snap Circuits Jr. kit to see if he has any interest in exploring similar concepts in three-dimensions.

In the meantime, there's a whole world to explore, full of different biomes, cities, people and materials. A world which is, apparently, larger than the whole earth. No wonder it's taking a while.


(post image from the Paradise World blog)