By Danny Houton

Who am I? Teacher at St Mary’s CEVC Primary School, Bridgwater. Plymouth University graduate with a focus on ICT. Year 5 teacher. Computing co-ordinator. This is the third year that I have been using Minecraft with my class.

Set-up at St Mary’s St Mary’s have been using iPads since The iPads started off in Year 6 and have now been added to the other year groups. 1:1 iPads across years 5 and 6 1:2 iPads across years 3 and 4 25 iPads for KS1 to share We also have a number of iPods and Apple Mac laptops for the entire school to share.

How I started

Why Minecraft? Immersion Collaboration Problem Solving Enthusiasm Innovation Limitless Creativity

Why Minecraft? “Who keeps firing arrows at Billy’s head?” “I told you if you put TNT there you were going to blow up Christ the Redeemer.” “This is why we don’t play with fire. You’ve burnt down half the Amazon.” “Put down the water before you flood the Parthenon again.” “Stop walking around with buckets of lava.” “Stop dyeing all those sheep different colours and concentrate on what you’re supposed to be doing.”

How Minecraft Works in Year 5 One person creates a world and then up to 4 other players can join that world to work and build together. Cannot have more than 5 people connected to one world at a time. The world is created on a local server which means no one from the outside world can join our games. Each year, I always begin by establishing the class rules of Minecraft. These rules are displayed in class and children are reminded of them throughout the year.

The Rules of Minecraft The Golden RulesRecommendations 1.We only build what’s appropriate to the task. 2.We don’t say or type anything inappropriate to each other while using Minecraft. We don’t destroy anything belonging to someone else without permission We don’t spawn animals or creatures as this can slow down our game which may result in it becoming unplayable. 2.We use caution when using lava, water or TNT as they can lead to the breaking of Golden Rule number 3.

Introductory Lesson For our first lesson, we always start with a small project on building a mode of transportation. Modern or historical 10 Minutes Vote for our favourite

How I have used Minecraft History Anglo-Saxon Villages Ancient Greece Geography Brazil The Water Cycle Art 3D Modelling Recreating Artwork Landscape Drawing Maths Area and Perimeter Computing 2D Models Ratio and Proportion Reading E-Safety Position and Direction Comprehension

School Mapping

Art

Ancient Greece

Anglo-Saxon Villages

English For English, we do a 3-week writing block based around Minecraft. We focus on voyage and return stories during these three weeks because I find that voyage and return lends itself to Minecraft. The children build a ‘boring’ place, a ‘magical’ place and a ‘dangerous’ place all within one world. Their stories start in the ‘boring’ part of the world before being transported to the ‘magical’ part. After the initial excitement, characters must travel to the ‘dangerous’ place to stop an evil plot.

English Children are put into groups and are given time during their independent tasks to build and immerse themselves in their work. During group work, we focus on different elements of writing but try and link them to Minecraft. Children not only work together to build their world but also to plan their stories as each story within a group will take place in the same world.

Boring

Magical

Dangerous

Final Outcome The children create pictures books as their final outcome for the Minecraft unit. We use Book Creator on the iPads to create our picture books. Children type up their stories and then add screenshots of the Minecraft worlds they have built. These picture books are then shared within class as well as being shared with younger children further down the school. Children have even used the voice recorder on Book Creator to add voices to the pictures which activate when children click on certain characters.

Final Outcome

The Future Get parents more involved. Teacher training to use Minecraft across more classes. Possible after school club. Use Minecraft with lower ability children to improve writing. Minecraft week – build famous locations and offer virtual tours. Invite children from other schools to workshops involving Minecraft.

Thank you for listening Questions?