Use this PlayTogether guide to learn how you can help your child turn Minecraft play time into a positive learning and relationship-building experience. To learn more about why playing games with your children is so important, check out our Science of Play page.

Talk Before You Play

Take a minute to talk with your child about how the Focus, Flexibility, Organization, Planning, and Time Management thinking skills work, and why they are important for success in school and at home.

Set Gameplay Goals

There a few different options available for you to explore Minecraft with your child. The best option is to play on Xbox 360, as that version features a cooperative multiplayer mode. Otherwise, you can either each play on separate computers, or -- if you own and Android device -- download the app off of Google Play. There are demo versions avaialble, and even if you only have a single computer to use, the open nature of the gameplay makes it easy for two players to enjoy the game together, taking turns exploring and coming up with ideas of what to build.

It may be helpful to have the crafting guide open to help get acclimated with the game. Below is a list of several suggestions for beginner players to complete in their first foray into the Minecraft world:

• Punch down a tree and craft a workbench!
• Craft a shovel, pickaxe, and sword.
• Build your first house.
• Craft stone items.
• Bonus: Make Iron!

Stop and Reflect

After at least the first four goals above have been met, take a moment to pause the game and talk to your child about how each thinking skills was used in the game.

• Discuss how being aware of your surroundings is crucial for navigating the world, finding new materials, and building with them. Also, reinforce the importance of monitoring your health and hunger meters so you do not starve or die from falls or attacks.

• After your child has completed the first tasks highlighted above encourage them to try new combinations without using a guide to craft items or objects. Briefly touch upon the benefits of remaining flexible in the game such as: not getting stuck doing one chore, adapting to enemy threats, or navigating new or strange areas.

• Remind your child to keep their inventories organized and have all the tools they will readily need on their quick access bar located at the bottom of the screen. Also, if they have collected a large number of goods suggest crafting a storage container to hold some of it in their house as they explore.

• Discuss all the steps that go into building a house in Minecraft. How do you prepare? What order do you build the house components? Why is it important to plan how you want the house to look before getting started?

Our Make it Work activities are designed to transform your child’s gameplay to real-world improvements in thinking and academic skills. If you’re just getting started with LearningWorks for Kids, we suggest you try them all to find which are the best for you and your child.

Introduce the Thinking Skills

Read over the pages for Focus, Flexibility, Organization, Planning, and Time Management. Then take some time to introduce these thinking skills to your child.

Explain that:

• Focus is the thinking skill that helps us maintain our attention and effort, start tasks and keep working on something without getting distracted.

• Flexibility is the thinking skill that helps us adapt to new situations, learn from mistakes and change what we are doing in order to deal with different challenges.

• Organization is the thinking skill that helps us to arrange and coordinate materials and activities in order to complete a task.

• Planning is the thinking skill that helps us to develop a systematic approach for setting and achieving goals. It helps us to do things step-by-step, and to complete long-term projects on time.

Focus Activity

Encourage decision-making but provide directed encouragement. Your child, like many who have difficulties in getting started on tasks, might feel unsure of herself. It would inspire growth and confidence to encourage her to pick out books at the library, choose a movie for you to watch together or decide on a restaurant for a family dinner. But for getting started on specific tasks, some direct cues and prompts might be more efficient. You don’t want to do or say too much, but rather than wasting time by asking, “What homework do you have tonight?” or “When are you going to do your homework?” simply direct him to begin his work and/or tell him exactly how to start. Talk about other methods or strategies that help. Examples might be a regular homework time or a time limit on making a minor decision.

Flexibility Activity

Use nontraditional art projects to practice a variety of approaches to using the same materials. Your construction supplies could include a range of collected cardboard, string, jelly beans, paste, clay, and pipe cleaners, just to name a few. The building plans could include a specific project (making a house or shelter), an abstract object (shapes and colors), or an organized design that requires using materials in a certain order. Talk about how these various ways of making something require different skills, and compare the results.

Organization Activity

Some assembly required. Visual instructions for a Lego project or a piece of furniture can help children to see the steps of starting, organizing and completing a project. These models can help children construct their own types of “hard copy” for using illustrated directions or their own visualization skills. Offer reminders of these tools and procedures when children have a multi-step project to do.

Planning Activity

Anticipate needs. Plan together for what your child might need for school. Begin with a list of essential supplies such as pencils, notebooks, markers, backpack, and lunch box. Then list other materials or things she would like to bring to school and decide together which items to purchase. Gradually encourage your child to make these lists on her own. Encourage your child to think about how to determine the most important items to purchase.

Time Management Activity

Gimme a break. If your child has stagnated while performing a task, such as schoolwork or a chore, get him to move quickly doing something else. This could be a physical activity such as going for a quick bike ride, or something as simple as singing a song at a quickened pace. Getting him to move quickly in a fun (or even funny) activity may help him to become more aware of his pace in relation to other activities. Another strategy would be to take a 5-10 minute exercise break, which could include anything from doing a set of push-ups or situps, running up and down the stairs, or taking the dog out for a short walk. Initially, a parent will want to be in charge of when such breaks occur, but eventually we want the child to learn to identify when he needs to take a break himself, and furthermore, to be able to demonstrate that he is using the break responsibly by coming back to work better than before.

THIS GAME IS ALSO GOOD FOR KIDS WHO NEED HELP WITH:

Mathematics

While playing Minecraft, players work toward a number of personally created goals by working with an enormous variety of raw materials. In order to achieve their goals, players must craft items ranging from building materials, to tools and food. Each  crafted item requires the combination of a predetermined amount of prerequisite items. Players will compute basic math skills when determining the number of raw materials required to work toward a goal. For example, when crafting specific and more durable tools, players will need to compute the amount of raw materials required to craft other items which will then be combined to create their new tool. Working with both multiplication and division, players can determine the amount of time, effort, and resources that will be required to devote toward achieving their goals. Working efficiently requires mathematics so that players do not over-spend their time harvesting necessary materials, or fall short and needlessly backtrack to make up for the difference.

Minecraft & Autism Spectrum Disorder

Minecraft is a hugely popular game where children are dropped into a randomly-generated world with little instruction or guidance, and must explore the land to gather materials needed to build and survive. For children who find it difficult dealing with unstructured settings, the game serves as a fun tool to encourage adaptable thinking and flexibility. The multiplayer features foster cooperation and teamwork, making it of use to kids who find it difficult when they must work with others to accomplish a goal, especially in an unstructured setting.

How to Use Minecraft for Children with ASD:

• Understanding social clues and interacting with others can be challenging from many children affected by ASD, but Minecraft offers an opportunity to help in a safe setting. Your child may wish to build or create her world alone, but have her work and communicate others to accomplish her goals rather than focus on her individual needs. This will teach her how to speak and respond with others as well as learn how to work together with friends on a mutual goal. Because Minecraft is so widely played, an interest and expertise in it will give a child affected by autism many opportunities for interactions and conversations with peers.

• When she's playing Minecraft, she may not have the tools she wants or the animals she needs to build what she desires. She'll have to be flexible with her thinking in order to play. She'll either have to think about how she can use the tools and materials she has to build what she wants, or think flexibly about her plans in order to adapt them to her current capacities in the game. Talk with your child about thinking flexibly instead of getting frustrated when encountering these situations, or asking fellow players in her community for help.

• Playing Minecraft requires patience and self-control, especially when things don't go as planned. She may make a mistake, or her building might get damaged or destroyed, or she may run out of materials. When confronted with these situations, teach her to seek out solutions rather than letting frustration get the better of her. How can she better fortify her building against creepers next time? Where can she build for better resources in materials? Show her how each mistake is actually an opportunity to learn.

Minecraft & ADHD:

Lengthy planning, keen organizational skills and the ability to sustain focus over prolonged periods of time are not traits commonly attributed to children diagnosed with ADHD. Yet, those are the very skills players need to put to work in order to achieve success and survive the dangers of Minecraft.

Using the game as an educational tool for children with ADHD can help reinforce the cognitive thinking skills this population of children commonly struggle with. Follow our guidelines below to see how you can use Minecraft to teach and practice good Focus, Planning and Organization skills with your child.

How to Use Minecraft for Children with ADHD:

• Set strict play time rules. By limiting your child’s exposure to the game into regimented time slots, you’re not only helping avoid the risk over addictive use of the game (something kids with ADHD are at risk for), but also causing your child to maximize play time. This helps reinforce the need of proper planning and sustained attention, as an absent-minded approach will lead to little progress within the limited time.

• Set some goals. The best way to get going in the game is to set some very basic goals. These include collecting mined materials, building a workbench to craft items upon, and constructing some simple shelter before nightfall. Make sure to discuss all the steps involved and the need the focus on the task at hand in order to achieve your goals before nightfall — and monsters! — arrive.

• Set some bigger goals. Once you discussed how setting some simple goals early on required good Planning and Focus skills, really put them to work by scaffolding up the challenge and going for something big. This could include venturing out into uncharted land to set up a second home base, or traveling into the depth to tunnel out new mining material. Explain why poor planning and a lack of focus will likely lead to failure, and how breaking the tasks into smaller steps and remaining attentive help improve the chances for success.

• Re-create something from the real world. Now that you’ve tackled some bigger projects, go for something a bit more challenging. Have your child pick something to re-create in the game from real life. Preferably, this should be something easily accessible, either at home or online, as you’ll want to be able to easily reference it to ensure an authentic virtual counterpart. Grab a pen and paper and be thorough. List the needed materials, plot out a spot to build it in the game and start creating your structure. Try to go for something really big, so that you’re child can see the benefits of goal-directed persistence and preparation.

Let's Play Videos Available!

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcJSOMKXuE4[/embed]

You can find more Minecraft let's plays and other let's play videos for popular games at the LearningWorks for Kids Let's Play channel on YouTube.