Even though I am a teacher of 14 years, I have never attempted to home school my own children because it has always been a struggle to get them to listen, learn, and work like my other students. For some reason, my role as mom just supersedes a teacher role and in their eyes, I am just an impostor who knows nothing about 'teaching'.
Now because of this Covid 19 pandemic and social distancing, most if not all parents are having to assume the role of teacher, even if the kids are getting some of their lessons virtually. My 9 year old son Rudy attends a private school for Autism and his teacher has given us a weekly lesson plan, schedule and access to Moby Max. While I am EXTREMELY grateful for that (because I tried planning and accumulating my own lessons, units ,etc based on the third grade standards using CPALMS and other free resources and I got QUICKLY overwhelmed!) I am still pretty much monitoring, assigning, enforcing and assessing his work. Honestly, Rudy is A WONDERFUL boy in EVERY SINGLE way and I don't say that just because he is my son. He really is a kind, smart, loving, not so little for long guy- but some days can be a REAL struggle!
His high functioning autism will sometimes manifest itself with fixations on things and an inability to transition to new activities (especially not preferred activities like work!). So if he wakes up fixated on a video game or a certain LEGO design, it is REALLY hard to get him to focus on writing (which is usually what we do for morning work) Before all this pandemic we were considering trying a medication for his ADHD to help with his focus but now we have decided to wait until he returns to the physical school setting since his learning can be more flexible for now. The BEST therapy and treatment for autism is ABA therapy, which stands for Applied Behavior Analysis. The premise is that behaviors can be taught and learned through a system of rewards and consequences. Rudy was in ABA therapy for over a year until last summer when we changed insurance and it became too expensive.
Through BCBS we had to meet a deductible and then the therapy was completely covered. When we switched to United, the deductible tripled and even after the deductible we still would have had a copay. It was insane- we calculated the cost to be almost $500 a month. I would like to eventually find a way to get him back into the therapy maybe with a different company or plan but for right now I feel fortunate that he at least got to benefit from the time he had in therapy. Part of the program is also training the parents so I got to know some of the basic techniques and structures. It is A LOT of data collecting and keeping track of behaviors and trying to correct/ reward or apply a consequence to the behavior the moment is happening.
I say all this just to explain that teaching for parents can be a struggle and one that I am intimately familiar with. Even if your child does not have autism, they would probably appreciate getting to have fun while the actually are learning content. Or even better- they might learn AND NOT EVEN REALIZE it was work! If you can turn a learning experience into a fun game, then you have created an authentic learning opportunity that your child will benefit even more from because they are motivated to do MORE of it and they are having fun while DOING it!
So how do we achieve this MIRACLE?! Well I think one way is by PLAYING MINECRAFT! I was never a huge fan of the game. As much as I tried, I was never really able to figure the game out and every time I tried to play it with my kids, I would get disoriented and not know what buttons to push, how to walk, move around or basically do anything!
Then a friend posted a news article that because of quarantine, Minecraft was releasing their Education Edition FOR free until summer! Rudy got the game back in February for our PS4 and had been having a lot of fun playing it and building cool worlds so I thought- WHY NOT give it a try.
The first time I tried finding it, Rudy was out with his Dad and it was a frustrating EPIC fail. It took me 30 minutes just to find where the Minecraft Store was- (it is embedded in the game) . As a mom I am such a gamer NEWB. Most people probably can easily find the Education Edition and download it but I thought- if there are any other moms out there like me, they might appreciate a little help. Especially since, I probably wouldn't have given up on Minecraft long ago if someone had showed me how to do it!
This will especially help if you have a Playstation! But I am assuming it is a similar process for the computer version, and Xbox, phone etc.
We have the actually PS4 Minecraft disc- so I loaded that into the PS4. The education editions can be downloaded from the Minecraft store that you can find on the homepage after you start the game.
There are many AWESOME Education worlds available from the Human Eye, Space Station, Mount Olympus and more but I really wanted to try the Marine Biology edition first.
So I downloaded it and clicked "CREATE" to start exploring the world.
Well it was a LEARNING EXPERIENCE! It probably took me 10 minutes to figure out how to open a door! But I didnt give up. Once you enter the SeaFoam Marine Center, you meet Brooke- your boss. She gives you scanner and tells you to practice by scanning a tropical fish. Where the heck was the fish, I wondered! LOL Minecraft world looks different than the real world. I found the fish in a tank to the right of us, managed to scan it and then went back to Brooke. After you find and scan an animal, you get a data card which has to be taken to the GIANT blue screen computer to the left of the room. I entered the fish data and then I was ready to start a real MISSION! I was so excited and it was so fun!
After the practice scan, you go see Lee who gives you scuba gear to put on. I am actually scuba certified and LOVE diving so I was so excited to get to do it virtually .
I let Rudy take over at that point. We were able to find and scan the starfish and we also figured out /realized that even with the gear on, you have to swim to the surface to get air or you will 'die'. Dying only means that you have to respawn- or start over (but with all the data and progress you have made being saved)
I am so excited to play again and find all the other animals on the list. Rudy has already played the Space Station on his own and loved it. There is so much information embedded in the worlds that kids learn so much while having a blast doing it.
Check out our video and GOOD LUCK with you home learning adventures!
