Minecraft Math & Learning.

My boys play a lot of Minecraft.  

It used to drive me nuts.

Lately I've noticed that they are using the game to practice skills like math, reading, spelling, problem solving... and I don't mind quite so much.  


My youngest son is constantly asking me questions like 25 + 66; how much is that?  Or I have 8 cubes and I need 6 to build this; I want to build 9 of them how many cubes do I need?  The math questions are endless lately, and instead of telling him, I repeat the question and ask him or else talk him through the various steps needed to figure out his own answers.

It prompts his older brothers to do math too as they try to help him figure out the answers.

They like to label everything and I'm getting asked how to spell all sorts of words; which I help them sound out or ask them how they think they should spell it.

I have used their love of Minecraft to encourage learning. 

We have filled our house with Minecraft books of all sorts!  


A week or so ago I bought my youngest son a Minecraft Activity book; it's filled with mazes, word searches, dot to dots, spot the difference pictures and the usual activity book type pages.  I had hoped he'd use it now and then throughout the summer to keep himself from being bored... he's already 1/2 way through it and my middle son asked me to buy him the same one.  We're also buying activity book #2 for them all.  I know they'll complete them both in no time.

Book 1  

I have also ordered them a Minecraft themed math book; I figure we'll use some of the pages each week for some additional fun math.  My boys usually enjoy these compute and color pages and knowing they're making Minecraft figures will really motivate them.  If they enjoy them there are even more of these books to choose from! These are great for simple math review and keeping skills honed; best of all the boys think it's fun!



 

We use Minecraft to encourage reading too.  There are so many Minecraft books out there to choose from and my boys have tried so many of them.  They have a few favorites through and are slowly working their way through Minecraft books and stories.  Here are their favorites:

They love ALL of the construction handbooks.  Filled with how to guides and tips they have read these books cover to cover a few times and use them to look up answers whenever they need them.


They love the Gameknight 999 Series and are currently working on reading their way through book 3. There are 6 books so they'll be busy for a little while still.


The Gameknight 999 series continues in the books Gameknight999 versus Herobrine (which is another 6 book series!).  My boys are already talking about them.


The Unofficial Gamer's Adventure books are also a huge hit in our house.  There are also 6 books in this series and they'll be finishing that up in the next week or so once the last book comes in from our library. 





Do you have any favorite Minecraft resources? 

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Comments

  1. This is an entirely new topic for me. Thanks for the thorough review!

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    1. You're welcome. I know more about Minecraft than I would like to at this point.

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  2. this looks fantastic - I will have to check it out. thanks for sharing !!

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  3. It took me a long time to check out minecraft. I just hate for our children to be on the computer much at all. A friend gave us a gift card. I can't believe how much the children are learning! I still limit their time, but it's really nice when the weather is bad. These are some great ideas to go with what they are learning. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Yeah I was quite reluctant to let them play but they are learning so much and it's a great way to keep them occupied when the weather is bad.

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  4. I have heard a lot of good about Minecraft. My girls are not into the game, but it is supposed to be super education.

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    1. I think like anything else it certainly can be but can also be overused and played "just for fun" too.

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  5. I'm definitely going to get the Minecraft math books. At least six of my kids are obsessed with it. We have all of the construction books and the Gameknight series, but we don't have the math books. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. You're welcome! They have multiple volumes of each one and I figured it would be a fun way to keep math skills honed this summer and still feel like a fun break from math.

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  6. Wow! I had no idea minecraft was educational. My son keeps asking to play it. I may have to consider it after seeing all of this. Thanks for sharing at Family Joy Blog Link Up!

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    1. My kids have learned a lot playing Minecraft; they love to play in creative mode and my oldest son spent quite a few weeks making a replica of Percy Jackson's ship from the books we were reading too one time. They find all sorts of ways to relate what we're learning about back to Minecraft. We still only allow them to play for so long and so often but I do feel like it's one of the better choices of video games out there.

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  7. This is such a great list! It seems like ALL the kids are into Minecraft these days. How cool to connect learning activities to the game. Thank you for your ideas! -Sarah from tenbooksamonth.com

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    1. You're welcome! I always try to take my kids interests and think up ways to get them excited about learning.

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  8. My husband loves Minecraft, these would be great for him to practice with the kids!

    Thanks so much for sharing at #bloggerspotlight!

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    1. That's so neat that he enjoys Minecraft. My kids wish my husband and I were at all interested in it.

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  9. My kids love Minecraft and there are so many ways to use if for learning all different subjects. Thanks for this list!
    ~SandyToesCreations

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  10. All four of my boys (ages 17, 13, 6, and 5) are seriously into Minecraft! My husband and I have no interest in it. We do love the boys learning and (usually) playing well together. My brother-in-law plays, has his own server, and my two oldest have access to the uncle's server. I like the fact they have someone to talk about it with as my eyes glaze over after a bit. My brother-in-law helped my husband set up a server for our boys here at our place.

    My two oldest are writing their own Minecraft-inspired books. They talk about Minecraft all of the time. They ask a bunch of questions about how many cubes would they need for this or that.

    Long ago, I drew out a floor plan for my dream home. I drew it out for the boys a couple of years ago. Now, they want to build it in Minecraft. They want me to draw it out on a large piece of graph paper so they know how many cubes to use in making it!

    The son of a friend of mine started his own YouTube channel. The son uploads videos of the whole family (the son, my friend, my friend's wife, and the daughter) playing Minecraft together. The videos are clean (no language) and my boys (all four of them) LOVE watching them. Check out his videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSuperninja2000

    Thank you for sharing. My boys have the construction books. I have not seen the others and have added them to their Amazon wishlists. :-)

    ~Adrienne

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    1. Sounds a lot like my boys; my eyes glaze over and while I try to stay involved or even watch them play I am usually totally lost.

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  11. I'll all for anything that encourages learning, but like everything else I would try to keep interaction with the game in proportion to other activities.

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    1. It's definitely all about balance; in everything.

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