A Perfect Village – Ready – Set – GO?

For a Guided Math Session, I have decided to offer the following game-based experience for students.  I welcome all feedback (before I launch), and will provide a follow-up comment once the lesson has been completed by a group.  Feel free to test with your students, and let me know how it goes.

A partner challenge to compete in this four day challenge.  Who will build the perfect village? With the help of one of my students we have used command blocks to set up a Store to manage the Survival world.  Important to note – no supplies can be obtained by students, and they must use the following allowances to purchase all supplies;

Stage 1 $1000  Mapping it out

Stage 2 $10 000 Improving and building a sustainable community

Stage 3 $100000.  Add in new expensive blocks (diamonds, redstone, pistons?)

Stage 4 Trade Market

Must complete each stage before moving on;  Teacher Conference Required after each stage

STAGE 1 Mapping it out!  Only show dimensions and fractions and students are required to mark out each area using the following;

• demonstrate and explain the concept of equivalent fractions, using concrete materials (grade 5)
• solve problems requiring the estimation and calculation of perimeters and areas of rectangles
• demonstrate an understanding of simple multiplicative relationships involving whole-number rates, through investigation using concrete materials

Fractions to plan area.  Amount of land? 30 x 30?

• Houses.  1/5
• Parks, and Green Space 2/20
• Farm – food production  1/3
• Roadways   3/10
• Stores  1/15

I’ve decide to provide some direction to the students by providing them an initial worksheet to help them plan.

The Perfect Village Challenge  – I decided to share the worksheet after I test drove the activity with a few students.  And I learned, in order for them to successfully map it out they needed to roughly sketch out their ideas first.  One student, shared this and said “and not sure how many would do it without the guidance, and it would be too confusing without it.”

I will also share the following prompts with them as well;

• Make a sketch to map out your design on provided grid paper
• Make a shopping list of what block, supplies before you enter the game
• Must stay within budget ($1000) – The $1 sale
• Map out you area by using the following blocks to map out the ground ; Wood – House(s) Area, Parks/Green space – Grass,  Farm – Dirt, Roadways – Gravel, and Stores – Cobblestone
• Need to survive (don’t forget to buy some food)  (steak $5, bread $2, and apples $1)
• Set your Home block – will be helpful to teleport back to your town if you need to re-spawn (Give one to each student)

STAGE 2  Improving & building a sustainable Community (encouraged students to account for their budget as they spend)

• represent relationships using unit rates
• add and subtract decimal numbers to thousandths

New Items available for purchase.  Government grants you $10 000 to improve your town.  You may purchase animals, tools (bucket), and water to help you build a sustainable community.  Also, you can improve the look by using many new decorative blocks.  Including, but not limited to; doors, glass, stairs, and metals.  Check price list for availability.

(glass blocks, Stone, iron, different planks, pig, cow, chicken, seeds, samplings, coal, colour wool?  2 stores – Costco (Bulk) vs Sobeys (more choice but per 1 item)  3 for $20 or 1 for $10

• Ask the Question of where next – chance to use the chat – What items are you missing that you would pay more for?

STAGE 3  Add Functions and Quality

• solve problems involving the calculation of unit rates
• solve multi-step problems arising from real-life contexts and involving whole numbers and decimals

The Wealth Grant has rewarded you $100 000 .  You must spend wisely to get resources that will help your town function and make it one of the best villages in the county.  Establish your goals and search the new items for purchase.  Could you benefit from more rare items that will improve the automation of your town (redstone, pistons, and the might powerful command block)

• Offer items based off the suggestion and votes at the end of Stage 2
  (redstone, redstone-torch pressure plates, pistons, glowstone, diamond, gold, emerald???  )  $1000 items

Day 4  (Game Extension – Time permitting)  Money has run out – Stay calm and Trade On!

• demonstrate an understanding of rate as a comparison, or ratio, of two measurements with different units (grade 7)

What do you need to make more complex creations? (recipes – what are you missing – establishing value) Is one diamond block to 10 blocks of Iron – how do you justify?  It is important to consider; What do you need (recipes) ?  What can you offer?  (appropriate value)

•  Also, a chance to see each town and what they have been able to create.

Assessment

Tracking Student Learning – Conferencing and the use of OneNote

• Teacher takes screen shots and takes notes during conferences (ongoing)
• Guiding Questions

– How did you determine how much land each town component required?

– Did you estimate how many blocks you would need for each area? Calculate how many blocks you needed to purchase?

– What was most challenging about managing your budget accurately?

– How did you manage your budget?   Trial and Error vs. Systematic approach

– Were you able to use unit rate to help you when purchasing in large quantities?

– Was it possible to establish a fair trading market?

Thanks for reading our Game-based lesson, and we look forward to sharing how it plays out with the students (or share your experience if you decide to test it out).