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I love seeing all the first day of school photos everyone is posting. A friend even posted her first day of Grad School as a joke (she is a mom of 2!). And this idea for making a back-to-school time capsule that includes hand tracings and a string that is as long as your are tall and more is a great way to celebrate and plan for a year of growing! Pop on over to the blog I Heart Crafty Things for instructions on how to make a recycled jar back-to-school time capsule.
If your kids have been into Minecraft for a while or are just getting into it because of the movie, now is a great time to add some Minecraft learning activities to your rotation.
There has been a lot written about using Minecraft in homeschool environments in particular and the things that kids can learn playing Minecraft such as using creative thinking, learning about rocks and minerals represented in the game, resource management and using modeling within the game to learn or show what they have learned.
You can also challenge kids to construct things within Minecraft with these challenge cards from The Canadian Homeschooler. Working on specific tasks emphasizes logic, reasoning, problem solving, creativity and coding skills.
And don’t miss the resources and challenges from Minecraft Education itself, which has ideas for learning about computer science, cyber safety, math and climate science among other things.
Of course you can also use Minecraft as a way to enhance learning outside of the game, and Homeschool Superfreak has a good list of ways to build on experiences in Minecraft for real life learning such as problem solving, teamwork, geography and architecture. Techie Homeschool Mom has tips for designing your own unit study around Minecraft.
Momgineer has a post on learning about world landmarks with Minecraft, and Teaching Math Literacy has a post for using the game to teach area and perimeter.
Years ago I shared this Minecraft multiplication game, as well as a set of lesson plans and activities with a Minecraft theme.
Pixel Paper Craft has a full printable Minecraft Monopoly game, where the spaces are resources and there are even change ideas to use. So fun!
1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1 has a good set of Minecraft worksheets for kindergarten, which includes math activities, reading, colors and more. You’ll find graphing and coin counting, phonics and rhyming words and color practice using Minecraft objects, to name a few.
Older kids might enjoy the Minecraft writing prompts from Write Shop.
Make a Minecraft themed Lego number line with this tutorial from Stir the Wonder. Add a die and make it a race to the finish as well as counting practice.
Rock Your Homeschool has printable Minecraft activity sheets that include a word search and scramble, maze, instructions for drawing a creeper, characters to color and more. There’s also one where you can draw your own Minecraft skin.
Rainbow Printables has tutorials for drawing Minecraft characters, and Rock Your Homeschool also has 10 color by letter pixel designs of Minecraft characters and creatures.