Students will build, edit, and explore a full course of fun and educational projects in Minecraft. Kids will be able to recreate real life structures while learning about architecture, physics, and circuitry.
Kids learn to move to and explore within Minecraft. Then, move on to building and crafting. By the end, students will use their knowledge and creativity to make projects on their own. Students don’t need prior experience with Minecraft or coding.
Level 1: Learn the fundamentals of Minecraft while designing your own house, farm, zoo, and more.
Level 2: Explore the secrets of brewing, enchanting, and the power of Redstone.
Level 3: Design trap doors, defend against "mobs", hidden doors - everything you need to bring your Survival skills to the next level.
Building a zoo, Train station, Roller coaster, Rube Goldberg machine, Horse race track, Making a secret door, Wrap-up party
*These are recommended age ranges. We can adjust based on your child’s needs and abilities.
With nearly 140 million active users, chances are your child is either playing Minecraft or has friends that do. It may not look much different from the other games your child obsesses over – albeit with a clunkier, retro look – but this is much more than the average game. So, if you’ve wondered about the weird, pixelated world of lava, pigs and strange terrains that’s grabbing your child’s attention, we have answers to your questions about Minecraft.
A lot of games are limited, operating within defined parameters of challenges and victories. Parents have watched their kids play these games too many times, repeating the same loop over and over until the child finally loses interest and moves on to something else. Minecraft, on the other hand, is the opposite of that dead-end cycle. Users aren’t confined to one track but can go in any direction they want - create, explore, manage resources, or fight monsters and other enemies. It’s a boundless playground for your child’s imagination. Without either goals or limits, your child is free to create and tailor their own experience, and how they use the platform can change and grow over time as they hone their skills. Better yet, that growth doesn’t mean additional costs – a one time fee of about $20 -$25 gives your child an unlimited universe of creativity – and free versions and demos still exist so you and your child can try out the platform before diving in.
With the broad popularity of Minecraft, it should be no surprise that it is available on a variety of different platforms, giving your child a number of ways to access the Minecraft universe. And with a variety of versions, settings, and modes, as well as the possibility of customization, you can make a version of the game that is uniquely yours.
As mentioned, Minecraft exists on several platforms - from Xbox One to PCs, from Playstation to Android, iOS, and Windows phone. A Nintendo Switch version was released in 2017. While the tablet version can be better for younger children who can struggle with keyboards, the PC version offers a smoother experience with more features and is easily the most popular platform in use. The console versions are very similar to the PC version but can only access multiplayer worlds on that console – meaning your child’s friends will need the same console for them to be able to interact online.
While Minecraft exists mostly as a creative sandbox game, it is possible to get a different experience by selecting the proper mode. There are five modes for Minecraft, each providing different options and a different “feel” for the game:
Spectator – Available only in the Java and Console Legacy editions, Spectator mode allows a play to explore endlessly without interaction. Players in this mode have no inventory but do have the ability to view from the perspective of creatures and other players.
Creative – This mode gives the player an inventory and the freedom to travel anywhere in the game world. Avatars neither suffer hunger nor take damage, allowing players to focus purely on creation and construction.
Survival – Survival mode sets limitations on players and provides hazards for the avatars to give players a more challenging experience. Building and crafting require resources, which must be gathered, and which may be traded with both players and non-player characters. Players can earn experience with various tasks, which can then be spent on equipment.
In this mode, the avatars have a health bar, which can be reduced by taking damage from falls, environment hazards, or attacks. They also have a hunger bar, requiring the avatar to eat regularly to replenish their health (as well as to avoid additional health damage from hunger). A completely depleted health bar means the avatar has died and will respawn at a selected point, possibly losing inventory depending on the settings. Various difficulty settings on survival mode determine how challenging the experience will be.
Adventure – A variant of Survival mode, Adventure mode allows players to explore custom maps or take on designed quests, and may require specific items to complete successfully, depending on the setup.
Hardcore – Existing only in the Java edition, Hardcore mode is a ramped-up version of Survival mode. Death here means no longer being able to interact with that particular world, except in Spectator mode. This mode is recommended only for experienced players.
Minecraft has a huge modding community - users and other parties that create maps, modifications and various gameplay changes allowing a player to utterly customize their experience using Java code. The full range of mods is nearly infinite, with various themes like horror or even holiday themes like Christmas and can change all aspects of the world so your child and their friends can each have a completely unique game.
