Design Games for Elementary School Students

I am not a big fan of the gory, bloody or violent war games that many of our elementary school students play online. There are obviously not on the school’s recommended resource list. On the other hand, I love to be able to allow them time to design and experiment with games that require a little more thinking than to fire a gun, chop someone’s head off or blow something up. Here are two of my students’ favorite, plus a bonus one, I found today,

Learn about cause and effect with LineRider by drawing a line, where your little sled zooms along unless it was too steep or not steep enough to gain enough speed to fly over abysses, jump ramps, or zoom across YOUR design.

Fantastic Contraptions is a game that one of my Tech Patrols (4th grader) recommended in Tech Club. He demonstrated some amazing contraptions he had designed to get through the levels. I must say that every single kid that was in the room was glued to his lips and his explanations. They could not wait to get to their computers to try it out for themselves.
A fun Online Physics Puzzle Game

To get an idea how to do this, check out the following video clip.

I just found the link to the following game today in my Reader. Can’t wait to introduce it to the kids and see their reaction.

Drawminos is game, where YOU get to design your own domino path by dropping each individual pieces and balls onto the screen

Create Character Trading Cards

Just found this amazing site, that allows students to create Character Trading Cards from Read Write and Think. Thank you CLong from Tech Integration in School.

Students will be asked question by question to fill out an analisis of a book character for example.

Once completed, students can print it out, to fold and then glue together. There is also a space for kids to add an image of their character afterwards. I did not see that the image could be added electonically though.

Download example of character-trading-card as a .pdf

Neat possibility to create a game in your classroom around characters of a story or a book.

Here are additional interesting material / links from the Read Write and Think

• Create and Print your own Flip Book
• Read and create your own Fractured Fairy Tales

TechCamp- A Reflection

For five days, three hours each morning, for a total of fifteen hours, I had a small class of twelve students of my own. They were between the ages of 9-11 years old, incoming 4th through 6th graders.

I have written in the past weeks about my preparation for the camp on Learning and Teaching Scratch and TechCamp- Scratch, Lego Designer, Zoon Tycoon and more .

My prerogative for the campers was to be able to have the time to play and explore. I stressed to them that they would be learning with and from each other. It was ok, to take a break and stroll over and stand behind another camper to look over their shoulder and check out what and how they were doing something.

I was amazed how they focused they were most of the time. How generous with their explanations and sharing with their fellow campers. I loved the way they enthusiastically ran over to someone else and exclaimed how something worked that they had just figured out. We took a break each day about half way through and headed out to the playground. While some of them hit the swings and started chasing each other around a group of four didn’t take long to find out that they all had a DS. They seamlessly were attracted to each other and continued gaming.

Each day, I’d introduce a program, game, link or site and then let them work on them on their own and with each other. I would never force anyone to work on any particular one, always encouraging them to try new things though. The only requirement that I asked of them was that they needed to contribute with a review, recommendation or tutorial about a link, program or site. I was going to record them and then upload to the school’s Flickr account and then embed them into the blog.

I was so impressed by their natural ability to just narrate what they were doing on the screen. No rehearsal, no editing, except for cutting down the length to stay under the 90 second imposed by the limits of Flickr uploads.

In addition they reviewed or recommended the following:

• Zoo Tycoon
• Wildlife Filmmaker
• Animal Planet Games
• DizzyWoods
• FancyPants
• Club Penguin
• Webkinz

On Day 4, I created a different scenario. Each camper would start out with a different program or site. They were given 10 minutes to start creating or building. After the time was up, they would move to the next computer and read, look at , edit, add on , learn from or contribute something new to that task. Here are the stations that we had available:

1. TechConnect Blog
   Each camper would leave a sentence or two and describe what they had learned or taught someone else in TechCamp. You can read their comments here .
2. LineRider
   We would try to build the best ride for that little guy on the sled.
3. Mircrosoft Word
   I left the task up to them and they chose to write a collaborative story together. Read their story on the TechConnect blog.
4. Zoo Tycoon 2
   Collaboratively they created a good layout and animal exhibits.
5. Lego Designer
   No one really got into creating anything. There were a few legos stacked on top of each other or sprinkled throughout.
6. Kerpoof.com
   Everyone painted, then erased or scribbled over the previous “piece of art”. No collaboration ensued.
7. Microsoft PowerPoint
   Everyone explored and figured out how to insert images, text, new slides, etc. We ended up with a PowerPoint file that faintly had a theme “Places to go-Things to do-Food to eat”.
8. Kid Pix
   Repeat of Kerpoof. No collaborative effort was evident in a “finished” product.
9. Scratch
   One of the camper’s favorite programs to play, experiment and “mess with”.
   
10. Google Earth
    The task was to find a particular place in Jacksonville, Add a placemark and write a description of a memory associated with that location.
    
11. Audacity
    The task was to listen to the track that someone else has left and continue to record that story
12. Myths and Legends
    Create a story collaboratively. Overall impression and comments were: Boring, they did not really get into this program.
13. Create a City
    Kids had fun with this one, but when the last campers came to this rotation, the city was built up and they did not feel they could contribute anymore only tear things down.