This build was made in partnership with Seven Stories, Newcastle (The National Children’s Book Archive). We used local Newcastle author, David Almond’s, book The Boy Who Climbed into the Moon and made the build on an accurate scale map of the centre of Newcastle in Minecraft created for us by The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford. This is a book for slightly younger readers aged 7-9. Seven Stories then took the resource out into local schools to work with children who lived on the estate.
The book itself tells the story of Paul, a young boy who lives at the bottom of a tower-block and decides one day to climb up inside it and then out and into the moon. During the course of his travels he has various adventures. We built our giant tower block that lies at the centre of the story on the Byker Estate in the east of Newcastle and set various in-game tasks around it – including, of course, climbing up to the moon above.
The Boy Who Climbed to the Moon .mctemplate file
The core method for Litcraft is the same across all of our builds. The main aim of the resource is to re-engage children with literature by creating a positive loop between the experience of reading, the immersive experience within the game-world and the return to the text. Children follow instructions given at the starting point in a series of chests and readable books. They can also write in-game. Trials of the resource have clearly shown that Litcraft enhances comprehension, engagement and empathy with the main character in a first person text.
All of the lessons are structured in such a way that pre-reading and preparatory tasks warm up the children and prepare them for the in-game activity – then they enter the world and play the in-game task – then they come out and undertake a follow-up writing activity.
• Preparatory reading and vocab tasks
• IN GAME ACTIVITY [lasts around 30 minutes]
• Follow Up task
There are usually between 4-6 tasks for each world that correspond to key chapters and passages within the book. We recommend children working in PAIRS or THREES using the worlds on an ipad.
Litcraft has already been used in a range of ways:
• Whole class reader (read the text together and then use the resource for key lessons)
• Reading Intervention Groups (Litcraft as a way to re-engage reluctant readers)
• Libraries (we have a series of library partners who use it in school libraries and in main library events)
• SEN use – Litcraft works well with small groups