Minecraft Education Edition - The Princess Blankets: Learning Through Teamwork and Collaboration.

The Princess Blankets is a book written by Carol Ann Duffy that goes with these worlds below in this pack. The book, the worlds, the student resources as too the teacher guide with editable pages for all is available here.

To allow you to take this pack, there is a PDF of the book as well as a stage-by-stage guide for non-playing teachers to lean on for support. Please note that this copy of the book is from out library service and used in solitude with this game pack.

The process of the book and game.

Kindergarten-Grade 4—If ever a picture book deserved to be called "overwrought," it is this one. The pseudo-fairy tale centers around a princess who is always cold (which reminds us of fairy-tale princesses who never laugh and their ilk) and the king's promise of a reward for anyone who can cure her (which reminds us of too many fairy tales to count). After the customary useless attempts, a mysterious, magical stranger appears who seems more bent on destroying the princess than on saving her. He lays blankets of the ocean, forest, mountain, and earth upon her—symbolically raping the country of its livelihood and treasure in an attempt to conquer her spirit. But, hark! A kindhearted musician happens along. He falls instantly in love with the princess and charms and woos her. The blankets fall off, one by one, as she succumbs to his kisses and, well, she marries him. All of this is illustrated with sumptuous, deeply textured paintings that feature copious amounts of metal leaf, which may endear them to those who love glitter. It's all too much. And unnecessary.—Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY

https://www.amazon.com/Princesss-Blankets-Carol-Ann-Duffy/dp/0763645478 Paperback only.

The Princess Blankets is a book that we use as part of a longer English project in Year 6 (Grade 5). The whole point is for students to connect with the characters, the setting and write their own versions based on their inference of the original story. For our project in Minecraft we focus on the metaphors within the story as a whole. The Princess is perpetualy cold and the King wants to find a way to keep her warm. The sequence of events is such that each substance the King buys or hires is unsuitable until one day stranger arrives in the town. He immediately plays music and the princess is warmed from her love of the music and the stranger.

As you can see, this fits very well with the way Minecraft lends itself to these types of scenes where a player needs to find and use a particular material. In this case the materials and the games lead to tougher and more complex situations right up until the students need to create music using Noteblocks in the Nether -the darkest part of the world and, indeed the story before the Princess warms up from the beautiful music produced.

Gameplay in General.

Taken from the Teacher’s Handbook…

There is a mixture of hosting and individual play with teammates doing different jobs such as researcher and coach (there may be very competent players in the classes who can play Minecraft very well). The story ends with the Princess finding warmth by music. Music is made with note blocks in the nether. The final musical score is in lesson 5 when the players find the 'Record Player' with the discs.

The players must find the princess ( in the wooden castle at spawn). There they must place the player to be teleported to the boat to 'win' the 'crystal'. There is a platform open to students to explore and view the world from above. If they see it at night they will see more items. Their laptops need to be on large chunk distance viewing in video settings. N.B. Students can fall off this and die. If they do they'll be teleported back to spawn without items. So if they have the book in their inventory, they will lose it.

Similarly, if they have a portfolio this is gone too.

The world is an adaptation and remix of Litcraft's Treasure Island. See here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/chronotopic-cartographies/litcraft/

Intro

There is a key to the order of the Games. This is done by learning about 'reverse image search' using an innocuous image of a Marklin H0 Train set. This provides the sequence: 34251  The children investigate the numbers within the image which is the key to opening the game. Not necessary but teaches reverse search and is a bit of fun to kick off with.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=34251&t=newext&atb=v238-1&iax=images&ia=images

Ideas laid out in main students' class cards (see the buttons for resources below) are where the games are self-led by the students. Each card has a main goal and contains the links and ideas for easter eggs, the game or level focus or to find the Princess herself.

The students work in teams of 3 with a researcher, builder and explorer. Each game emphasises the team member’s role and comes together in Game 1 (the last game) where they must build a melody, a beat and find the princess else they cannot win the trophy aboard the ship floating in the bay.

Video Overview

Learning through play with Minecraft EDU