Minecraft

To give everyone a brief overview of Minecraft, especially for those younger kids who might not have played before, we showed a few brief YouTube videos.  We showed:
Don't Mine at Night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS4Xs_2s-8s
Flying Machine Contest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQvC-1Qu72w&safe=active
Revenge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPJUBQd-PNM&safe=active

Our evening group suggested:
Spider Encounter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6zpJMF1eM
Crafting Recipes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0PmjkCiWt0
Never Ever Going to the Nether: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWL0UwFbkL8

Of the three, Spider Encounter brought the most laughs and was most age appropriate.


Game: Minecraft Nerf Arrow Targets

We had two bows and arrows so two kids could go at a time.  Ground rules stated that if any of the arrows or bows were aimed at a person, the child would be immediately sent out of the program.  It worked!

Game: Slime Knockdown

The kids used rolled up balls of socks to knock down these foam slimes.  I luckily had a number of foam squares at home leftover from a failed project from six years ago.  I was happy to give them a new life!

Game: Creeper Toss

The plastic bag snowballs were too light and really made the game challenging.  The kids didn't care.  They had a blast.

Craft: Pixel Art

Our sample

Some kids really got into this.  We offered large grids and smaller grids.  Most of them preferred the larger squares (more reminiscent of Minecraft).

Craft: Minecraft Masks

We put out sample character templates for the kids to use, but many created their own thing.  Cutting all the one inch squares was very labor intensive, but well worth the time!  I only wish I'd gotten a picture of a completed mask.

Craft: Bookmarks

We had blank bookmarks and the kids could create anything on them.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of them!

Craft: Swords

Our sample

We only had enough cardboard sheets for the evening group so didn't bring them out as an option for our first group.  These ended up being much harder for the kids to do and many created their own thing rather than carefully draw out a sword, or other tool.

Evaluation:

This was by far our most successful program yet if you go by our attendance numbers and the buzz of excited kids.  The games, as always, were a huge hit and allowed those non-crafty kids to burn their energy.  The crafts were easily open ended and it was fun to hear all the conversations going on about what they were making.

Attendance: 54, 25

This is by far the largest attendance ever in the history of Monday Madness!