Today, we welcome Holly from When You Rise Up as she shares with us about Homeschool Minecraft Style. If you are like me and are trying to find ways to work Minecraft into your homeschool studies, be sure to check out Skrafty the Homeschool Minecraft Server. Thanks to Holly for the great post!
Minecraft, anyone?
It seems like everywhere you go someone is talking about it, and how their kiddos are mesmerized with it. If you have taken the time to look over your child’s Minecraft creations then you may have seen some of the educational opportunities that can arise during the game. I like to equate Minecraft with virtual building blocks.
The possibilities for learning with Minecraft are endless. Here are a few great ways to help your child learn using their favorite game.
Using Minecraft for Homeschool
Minecraft works wonderfully as a math manipulative. You can use Minecraft to assign math operation problems, counting, geometry, volume and area, and so many other things.
Playing on a multiplayer server can be very educational. It can help with speed reading skills, spelling, keyboarding, teamwork, and other social skills. I would caution you, however, if you are going to let them play on a Multiplayer server you will want to make sure it is a family friendly server with chat filters and other safeguards. We would love it if you would join us on SKrafty the Homeschool Minecraft Server.
Use Minecraft to study history. A great way to bring home the current history topic is to have them build something related to what they are leaning about. It can be a pyramid, a Greek theater, or anything that can be built from blocks.
You can use Minecraft to encourage creative writing skills. Children love to write about things they love. If your child loves Minecraft then why not have them write about Minecraft. Give them a prompt and have them finish the story. Make use of the book and quill feature of the game to make it more fun.
Demonstrate science learning with Minecraft. Minecraft is the perfect place to build models of cells, planets, etc without any mess.
Hopefully this gives you a few ideas to include a bit of education within Minecraft. Just remember that the sky’s the limit, and make it fun!
Holly Syx is a homeschooling mother of six children. You can find her at When Your Rise Up, sharing about their homeschool-lifestyle and Minecraft Homeschool Server as well as at I Go Bogo where Holly teaches readers to live frugally.
We are really enjoying using Minecraft in our homeschool — for now we have chosen to go with MinecraftHomeschool instead of Skrafty – mainly because my son is older. However I think both have some great stuff and I am impressed with the things my son is doing!