Use this PlayTogether guide to learn how you can help your child to turn Pirate Legends 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 to your child about how the Organization and Planning thinking skills work, and why they are important for success in school and at home.

Set Gameplay Goals

Pirate Legends is a single-player game. To play with your child, we recommend taking turns between battles. However, you may work together to develop a strategy and organize and/or upgrade the towers before beginning a battle. After reading over the thinking skills pages, work together with your child to complete the objectives listed below.

Gameplay Goals:

• Achieve victory in 3 battles.
• Earn the "Kraken Up!" achievement by using a Kracken relic power.
• Earn the "Big Guns" achievement by upgrading any tower to it's 3rd stage.
• Earn the "Magic Man" achievement by using at least one of each relic power type.

Stop and Reflect

• With so many different towers (20!) and types of enemies (28!), there are countless strategies just waiting to be thought of and used. Talk about the tactics and the methods he used to capture his foes in the game, but also challenge yourselves to come up with some new ones you haven't tried. Ask your child how the limited number of tower locations affected decision making, in terms of which towers to use and where to place them. Explain how prioritizing which towers to use, based on available information (such as the types of enemies and number of expected waves), helps to conserve resources and use only what is necessary. This is an important concept to understand during gameplay, as the first wave of enemies tends to arrive in large quantities.

• Conservation of resources is undeniably important in a world where such materials are limited. In Pirate Legends, looking ahead at the next battle and its features (number of enemy waves, enemy types, water current, tower locations) helps the player pick the defenses he needs and no more than necessary. Outside of the game, Planning skills can be similarly used when studying for an exam. Brainpower (and willpower) is a limited resource, and is best used wisely by studying only the relevant material to the topic of the exam. If the test is on the biology of mammals, reviewing biology notes about all animals ends up wasting time, brainpower, and motivation, and may even prematurely end the study session before covering everything important about mammals. Preparing for the exam by knowing the topic and even perhaps the types of questions (multiple choice, essay, etc) gives him a better chance at proving his knowledge and earning an impressive grade on the test.

• Factors such as the layout of the map, the water current, the types and waves of attackers, all must be taken into consideration when organizing towers in Pirate Legends. How did these elements influence his decisions? Were there situations where certain towers were always used or completely avoided? Did he experiment to create strong combinations of towers by using them together in one area? Did he focus his defenses to a particular area or were they spread out? Be sure to explore all the reasons behind his decision-making and emphasize areas he showed good organization and why they were so helpful.

• Start a conversation about how having strong Organization skills outside of video games can also help us reach our goals. Reflect back on the example of preparing for an exam. Organization can be used to gather all notes and relevant materials on the topic of the exam - mammal biology - and leave everything else untouched. It also allows him to distribute his efforts according to his strengths and weaknesses with the subject. He should focus more attention towards facts that he has a harder time remembering, and less time on the easier material. There are many other ways Organization skills be used to create a hierarchy of importance, like when you complete assignments in order of priority or due date. What other examples can you think of? Have your child explain the advantages of being organized in the examples you came up with together.

Our Make it Work activities are designed to transform your child’s gameplay into 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 the Organization and Planning thinking skills. Then take some time to introduce these thinking skills to your child.

Explain That:

• Organization is the thinking skill that helps us 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.

Organization Activity

Get organized before you begin. Have your child take out everything he will need before beginning a homework assignment. Many children begin assignments without thinking about which materials will be needed to complete the particular task. Getting out materials in the middle of a task can be distracting and takes away Focus from the assignment.  Have your child write a list of everything he will need to complete for each assignment. This could range from a novel, worksheets, a pencil, or calculator depending on the specific requirements. Ensure that your child is puts these materials away (in appropriate places of course) after they are no longer needed or the assignment is completed.

Planning Activity

Teaching planning as an antidote to being disinterested. Do not accept being bored as an excuse. The most compelling piece of psychological research in the past few years describes how grit and persistence are far more important than intelligence and ability for future success. Teach your child these skills. One of the most important things that your child can learn from you is how to make the best of the situation at hand. That means in a situation that may be boring for him, such as going on a long car trip, that he should plan out things that he can do to keep his mind active and busy. Not only will he be happier, he might actually enjoy the trip. Encouraging your child to think about what might keep his mind busy and active in a situation that he anticipates will be boring will be very beneficial for him.