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.

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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