Homeschooling with Minecraft

My older three kids ages 11, 8, and 6 are seriously obsessed with Minecraft, and honestly I don't mind. It is the one video game that they can spend hours literally creating whole worlds. Last year we signed up for an online class with projects on minecraft for school. Honestly the kids weren't all that impressed. They kind of just rushed through it so they could build what they wanted. Of course I was kicking myself for spending money on it when it just didn't work out for us. This year, I am letting them do whatever they want, but I am encouraging them to build on what we are learning in school. They are awesome at figuring out what to work on by themselves. Overall that is a better skill anyway. Why do we want to tell them what to create? We want them to think for themselves as adults, so why not start now?

However, sometimes even kids can use a little inspiration. These are some ideas to get started on:

• Build a farm:  learning about farm animals, farming, crop rotation etc.

•  Build a rocket:  learning about space travel

•  Build ships:  learning about Columbus, Vikings, Pirates, etc.

•  Build ancient city: learning about Rome, Greece, etc.

•  Build a Pyramid

•  Build a Longhouse: learning about Native American cultures

•  Build simple machines

•  Instead of a book report, build the setting to the book

•  Build the Great Wall of China or any other famous landmark

Other projects can be strait out of your curriculum if you use one. I have used Minecraft with my kids in place of building dioramas, making models of cells, and so much more. If you can build it in real life, you can build it on minecraft. Sometimes we like to build on minecraft and turn arround and model similar projects with Legos for some more concrete fun. Pretty much we try to keep it fun. We don't do very much building to scale or including specific things. We keep it light, creative and fun. I don't want to spoil their game for them, and the actual class we tried seemed to spoil all the fun.