Mining For Rock Crystal, Agate, Citrine, Amethyst, and Rose Quartz
Papercraft Chess
Dirt, Cake, Creeper, Grass, and Sand Blocks
Minecraft Rice Krispies Treats
Lapis Lazuli and Assorted Crystals From The Crystal Ark
The boys are crazy about a game called Minecraft in which you build your fantasy world out of blocks, fight zombies and a dragon, and ride around in mine carts. They would play this game all day long if they could. Since I don't think this is healthy, I've limited them to an hour of Minecraft during the week and a little longer on the weekends.
Some of what they learned in Minecraft has led to learning in the real world. We watched videos on how wool is sheared from the sheep, spun into yarn, dyed, and woven on the loom into rugs. We studied the different names of male, female and baby farm animals.
We bought a mining kit and mined crystals from plaster. We studied different stones both precious and semi precious. We watched videos on coal production, mining and mining tours. We drew Minecraft characters. While sharpening a pencil we discovered that graphite is a lesser form of coal and that it is also mined.
Papercraft is where you print out paper patterns of Minecraft blocks and then cut them out, fold them and tape them to look like characters from the game. We found patterns to make our own Minecraft chess set. The boys had fun making them and then playing a game of chess.
We visited the Crystal Ark at Granville Island. This shop is filled with crystals of all shapes, sizes and colors. The boys each chose a flat piece of lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli blocks are found in Minecraft. Sage also bought a hematite ball and a bunch of assorted stones which we will look up the names of on the internet since I forgot to write them down in the store.
For Dagan's birthday we made Minecraft rice krispies treats. We got the recipe from Nerdy Nummies on the internet. Dirt blocks are chocolate peanut butter, cake blocks are peanut butter with white candy melts and cherry airhead squares, creepers are mint with vanilla frosting and black candy melts, grass blocks are chocolate peanut butter with vanilla frosting grass, and sand blocks are vanilla.
Scenes From Minecraft
