Learning with Minecraft: Jr. Education Edition

Let's make learning fun with Minecraft Education Edition! My name is Ms. Astrid and I am a certified Minecraft Educator. Each week your learner will have access to our private account, where they will participate in fun build challenges, educational servers, coding tutorials, educational games and co-op free play. 

During this 4-week session we will have fun playing and learning together using Minecraft Education Edition. Students can be absolute beginners wanting to learn how to play, or they might have prior experience looking to improve their Minecraft skills. Minecraft Education is similar to the Bedrock version but is a separate software program, so please read the details in this description carefully. 

First, here is a weekly breakdown of our exciting course:

Week 1: Bee Creative! Let's play with bees in Minecraft and create a pollinator garden. This is a great way to practice our building skills while learning about the importance of bees in pollinating the food we grow and eat. This server is also a gentle introduction as learners get to know one another and familiarize themselves with Minecraft tools.

Week 2: Running with Rhinos - let's visit a baby rhino orphanage in Minecraft and learn about different species of rhinos and endangered animals. Collaborative build challenge: design some of the things necessary for an orphanage to have (vet clinic, supplies, etc). Students work together to assign and build their own elements, and additional resources provided after class will allow them to expand their knowledge of conservation and sustainability. 

Week 3: Inspiration Island! Increase your proficiency in Minecraft on an island filled with different activities including free builds, using redstone blocks and circuits, hidden chests and lots of collaborative projects that will help you learn some of the more advanced features of Minecraft.

Week 4: Language Arts - Desert Island Adventure. Together we will play in co-op and build on our very own desert island and collaborate to create a story describing how we were abandoned on the island together, and what items we brought along with us. At the end of class I will share our story and students can continue by adding more at home using our printable worksheet.

In addition to the live course, you are provided with optional printable worksheets. At the end of the course your learner will earn a printable certificate of completion. You can use these to log the hours spent in class and completing any external (optional) projects/homework. This is great for homeschooling families who are required to report hours for homeschooling credit and/or portfolios! 

***TECH REQUIREMENTS***
Minecraft Education Edition is free to download here: https://education.minecraft.net/en-us/get-started/download

Available platforms: PC/Mac, Chromebook, Android, iPhone, iPad. If using a PC it is preferable to use a mouse rather than touchpad, but either way will work. You can use the same device to log into the Outschool meeting plus play, but you might need to run some tests to ensure that your device has sufficient memory/RAM to run both Zoom and Minecraft simultaneously.  

After downloading Minecraft, please note that you are not required to sign up for the free trial or pay for a subscription. Upon enrollment in this class your learner will be assigned a custom license to use during our classes. The day prior to our first class your learner will be given a custom login and password, which can also be used to play Minecraft independently between our live sessions as well. If you are enrolling early and would like to test Minecraft on your own beforehand, feel free to sign up for the free trial that Microsoft offers. When it’s time for class your learner will sign into the class account. 

We are here to have fun and play! Ms. Astrid will remind learners of our classroom expectations at the beginning of every class: 

* If you didn’t make it, DON’T break it! We promise not to destroy someone else’s build without permission. This also applies to mobs, animals and entities.
* Let’s take turns talking and try not to interrupt or talk over each other. We will work together to create a fun learning environment. 
* Many of the usual Minecraft features and settings will be disabled in class in order to help us all to focus on the lesson. This might also apply to the Zoom meeting controls as well, including the mute button, chat, renaming and waiting room feature.