Minecraft Learning Activities

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.

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?

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