Bloxels Brings Research, Writing & Storytelling Through Video Game Creation To Our 2nd Graders!

We have been working on some very exciting Bloxels games in our 2nd grade at Van Meter this week!

Tracy Ferguson's students learned how to use this amazing video game building platform all week long with the help of a couple of our 5th grade friends and through Tracy and I collaborating together in the classroom.

Their Bloxels games are focused on a few stories around St. Patrick's Day and how to catch leprechauns!

One of the stories Tracy shared was The Gingerbread Man and the Leprechaun Loose At School.  We are super excited that we get to Skype with the author, Laura Murray, tomorrow!

We used this Google Doc to help guide their game design and thinking. You will find it here...please feel free to make a copy to use as your own.  We have used this for other grade levels and topics too.

Our other two second grade classrooms will learn about Bloxels after spring break and through our collaboration meetings this week, Megan Warwick, Staci Braun, Tracy and I came up with this fun idea that will tie into our 2nd graders upcoming trip to see the play...

Diary of a Worm, A Spider and A Fly.   

In fact, we even connected with the author of these wonderful books, Doreen Cronin, who will be joining all of our 2nd graders as we kick off this new Bloxels projects on March 25th. We can't wait for that!

After the Skype and after we share all three of these books (Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider and Diary of a Fly) with our 2nd graders, they will create a new version of Diary of....with Bloxels by turning their story into a video game about a new animal or insect.

You can get to the Google Doc for this Bloxels project here.

 They will be using PebbleGo Animals from Capstone while they research and....

 ...write their new story with a partner.  Their actual game will take place over three days, so it will be awesome to see their characters go on this adventure like the worm, spider and fly do in Doreen's books.

We can't wait to kick off this new project with all of our 2nd graders in a couple of weeks.  Every time we use Bloxels with our kids, kindergarten through 12th grade, at Van Meter, this is what we see! 

Engagement, empowerment and lots of joy and fun!  

You can find out more about BloxelsEDU here, friends.