Skill: Planning
Sub-Skill: Practicing Planning in Games
Recommended Age: Any
Included Games: Slice it!, Flow Free, Cargo Bridge, Where’s My Water?
The following games were selected because players need to use and practice a variety of planning skills in order to be successful in gameplay. These games practice planning skills in tasks such as problem solving, decision-making, and meeting goals and objectives. Planning is helpful in these games to improve foresight and anticipation of the future and in delaying impulsive behaviors by thinking before acting. Practicing this skill in the games and in the “Make it Work” activities can help children develop a roadmap in order to accomplish a goal or learn to prioritize and sequence their activities.
How to use this Lesson Plan
LearningWorks for Kids recommends that you set aside approximately one hour for each session, allowing for 30-45 minutes of gameplay, and 15-30 minutes of discussion.
Step 1: Discuss.
Take a minute to talk to your students about how the Planning thinking skill works, and why it is important for success at school. Have students choose at least 2 or 3 gameplay goals before starting to play. The gameplay goals ensure that the student is playing the game in an engaged and active way that will require use of the Planning skill for success.
Step 2: Play.
Give students a set amount of time to play the game. Usually, 30 – 45 minutes is a good timeframe.
Step 3: Reflect.
After the set play time has ended, take a few minutes to discuss how Planning was used in the game, and why it was important for success. You can use our Discussion Talking Points below, or just talk about your own experience with the game. In either case, make sure to call attention to the ways that Planning in the game is similar to the way students use Planning skills at school and at home.
Step 4: Make it Work.
Our Make-it-Work activities are designed to help show students how the skills they use while playing games are similar to the skills they rely on for success at school. Just choose the activities that you think your students would like the most, and schedule them for the same day as their gameplay. After they complete an activity, follow-up with a discussion about how the skills it required were similar to the skills required by the game.
Planning Games
Feel free to choose any of the games below for your lesson, or let students choose for themselves.
Mini Golf MatchupMini Golf Matchup is a highly social mobile game where players must try to sink the golf ball in the cup in as few strokes as possible. Along the way players must collect coins and gems by carefully guiding the ball through mazes and obstacles. The number of shots, the items collected, as well as additional multipliers are taken into account when computing the final score. What separates Mini Golf Matchup from other mobile golfing games is that players only compete against real opponents. There is no CPU. Players can choose to match up against social media friends or random opponents. There are five rounds of golf, and they player with the highest combined score at the end is declared the winner. Players are only allowed limited access to the game’s vast selection of levels in the free version. Gameplay is extremely easy to master, especially because there is a mandatory tutorial for players to complete when they sign up. There is no inappropriate content, barring any negative comments by other users. Mini Golf Matchup is recommended to children ages 6 and older.
How it Helps
Developing a systematic approach for setting and achieving goals.
There are many things that players must take into account if they want to achieve the highest score on each course. First it is important that they understand that scoring is not solely reliant on the amount of strokes it takes to complete a course. Players have to be strategic when setting up their shots. Sharp angles and obstacles stand in the way of collecting coins and sinking each put. Often the shortest route to the cup is the wrong path for players to choose. Purple gems are worth 2000 points and coins are worth 200 each. It behooves the player to try and collect as many as they can before deciding to sink the put. To contextualize the importance of gems and coins, it it better to collect all the coins and gems and birdie a hole than to collect none and get a hole in one. However, players must be careful when collecting these items. Their locations are likely to lead players astray from the natural roll of the course, forcing harder and longer shots. Before taking the first stroke, players should zoom out, taking a second to internalize all the course’s angles and coins. Only once they feel comfortable with the layout will they be ready to make their shot.
Gameplay Goals:
Mini Golf Matchup is a single player game, but lends itself well to multiplayer as well. Students should choose some gameplay goals before beginning their play.
Goals:
- Get a hole in one
- Collect all coins and gems in one course
- Collect all coins and gems and par the course
- Score over 15,000 points in one course
- Score over 75,000 in a match
Discussion Talking Points:
- Explain to your students why it is important to take a general overview of the course map before they begin. While some might simply want to “jump right in” to gameplay, they must understand the unpredictable nature of twists, turns, and obstacles can prove to be detrimental to their score if they do not avoid or overcome them. Especially on levels where they are required to hit the ball over bodies of water or through the gates of a windmill, your students must acknowledge and avoid them.
- Similarly, when your students begin a new unit in history, they should skim the entire chapter, committing images, maps, and bolded words to memory. Not only will it give them a better sense of what is to come, but it will help them contextualize the content as it is formally introduced.
Slice It! is a game that tasks players with cutting up different shapes into pieces of equal size. For each puzzle, players are told how many pieces they must slice the shape into, and are given a set amount of slices to achieve it. They cannot slice any more or less. It starts off simple enough but as the levels continue, the puzzles become increasingly hard, and players will eventually need to use their math skills to adjust their slices. The game has no offensive content and easy controls, but some math skills are helpful to adjust the angles of the slices, so Slice It! is recommended for players ages 6 and older.
How it Helps
Developing a systematic approach for setting and achieving goals.
Before beginning each puzzle, players are told how many slices they need to create to complete the stage. In order to cut up the shapes equally into the set amount of pieces, they player has to often plan ahead to make sure they do not fall short of the required slices. Some shapes are irregular and it is not easy or obvious on where to make the cuts. Planning skills are also used when players needs to adjust their strategy after a failed attempt, deciding which slices to adjust before moving forward.
Set Gameplay Goals
Slice It! is a single player game, but students can still actively participate in the game with their peers. Especially since some of the levels are quite challenging, an additional perspective can come in handy. Students can work individually, in pairs where players take turns between levels, or put their brains together and try to solve each puzzle together as a class (this may work best if you don’t have access to a class set of technology).
Gameplay Goals:
- Beat the first 10 levels, earning at least three stars for each of them
- Earn five stars and a “Perfect” ribbon for at least one level
- Go back and redo a level to earn at least one extra star than you did before
- Play a level from the second selection of stages and earn at least three stars
Discussion Talking Points:
- Explain to your students why it is important to take a general overview of the shape before they begin. While some might simply want to “jump right in” to gameplay, they must understand the limited number of cuts they can make in order to get the right number of pieces. Especially on levels where the shapes are not so familiar or clearcut.
- Similarly, when your students begin a new chapter in a textbook, they should skim the entire chapter, committing images, maps, and bolded words to memory. Not only will it give them a better sense of what is to come, but it will help them contextualize the content as it is formally introduced.
Make it Work Activities
Our Make it Work activities are designed to transform children’s gameplay into real-world improvements in thinking and academic skills. We suggest doing them on the same days that your students play the game, and follow-up with a discussion about how the skills required by the activities were similar to the skills required by the game.
Anticipate the future.
Demonstrate the need to plan ahead based upon schedules or upcoming events. If the lawn needs to be cut, discuss how your child needs to start the job in time so she can finish before dark or before it rains. Help your child to see parallel situations such as getting homework done before cousins visit or planning to shop for supplies to complete a project before the store closes. Use large, visual calendars for planning. This is particularly helpful for younger children when they can place the calendars in their rooms and decorate them on their own. Use visual cutouts to represent activities. Children may wish to use a digital photo of a baseball to remind them of baseball practice, or a violin or other instrument to remind them of music lessons.
Developing a systematic approach for setting and achieving goals.
Since Squids is a turn-based strategy game, making carefully planned out maneuvers is very important, as the player has only a set amount of moves to make each turn. Each squid has a stamina bar that depletes as it moves, and once all squids use up their stamina, the enemy gets to attack. This requires the player to plan the trajectory and power of each squid’s movement in order to successfully land attacks, also demanding that the player think ahead and predict the likely tactics of the enemy. For instance, falling of an edge results in a KO, so if a squid runs out of stamina near a ledge, the enemy will likely knock that squid off during the next turn.
Hire your child as your consultant.
Ask your child for help while playing a video game that requires changing strategies. Many online video games, such as Diner Dash, require changing tactics as your progress through the game. There are plenty of relatively simple games for parents to get started on, but they may struggle as the game’s complexity increases and solutions become less obvious. Ask your child for help, but also to explain how and why he or she shifted from one strategy to another. The focus should be to help your child recognize flexibility in game play and how this may be helpful in the real world.
