The post Maker day – game jam appeared first on K12 Handhelds.

We worked with 30 grade K-2 students in the morning and another 30 grade 3-5 students in the afternoon.

In the morning, we started with the Marshmallow Challenge. No matter how many times I do this, I always have fun and learn new things. This was a young group and had the highest “completion” rate of any group I’ve facilitated yet — 7 of 8 groups had a tower standing at the end. One of my favorite parts was when we debriefed afterward, and I shared the fact that kids usually do better at this than well-educated adults. When I asked the kids why they thought this might be, one supposed it was because adults had larger hands that made it more difficult.

After this, we had the kids make puppets and do puppet shows as a storytelling exercise. I was a little worried about this activity, because I thought the kids might be too shy to do it. I was completely wrong — the kids jumped right in and were amazing. We provided very little structure or suggestions, which worked well. Kids worked with what they were comfortable with. Some used supplied images to make their puppets; others drew their own pictures. They self grouped and were eager to do puppet shows. I had allotted an hour for this, and we could have gone twice that long.

The last morning activity was to make books. We started with pre-folded booklets made with these instructions. (I had wondered if this size might be too small for lower elementary, but they were just fine.) Then the kids wrote their books. Some students chose to use mainly pictures, while others included words. After their books were done, covers were attached, and students decorated those as well. Again, students were excited about this activity and worked well with little direction.

In the afternoon with the older students, we did a game jam (the second one I’ve done). This time we started with a discussion of what the students favorite games were and then moved on to talk about what makes a game (space, components, mechanics, constraints, a goal, and FUN).

The students were asked to form teams and make their own games using the following supplied materials:

• Poster board
• 2 dice
• 2 golf balls
• 2 cups
• Misc pieces
• Misc cards

Other art supplies were also available. They were also given this handout to complete.

They jumped right into it and made some pretty amazing games. Highlights were a game that used cards based on math problems and some very thoughtful work of thinking through and writing down rules and other guidelines. And it’s always a thrill to me when kids ask if they can take their work home and then are so excited to do so!

After they made their games, we had each group show their game to the rest of the classes and then give feedback using the following prompts:

• I like…
• I wonder…
• I might suggest…

The students were really thoughtful about this, and it worked very well. We actually had to rush it a little because of time constraints. There was a little time for students to play each other’s games, but not enough time to iterate. This was discussed though as a part feedback. In the future, I might give less time to game design and creation and more time to critique and iteration.

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Our local kids events have some interesting challenges, not the least of which is that we never know how many kids (and adults) will come, nor the ages of those kids. As such, the agenda is very flexible. Yesterday, we had the additional challenge of a new facility, which turned out not to work very well, especially because we had a record turnout of 28 folks (which was both good and bad). Next year we’ll need to find a new place to hold this event.

Here was the planned agenda:

9:00   Welcome and introductions, playing game. What’s your favorite game? What makes a game?
10:15  SNACK BREAK
10:45  Game jam challenge  (designing a game with supplied materials and constraints)
NOON  LUNCH
1:00   Design a game (You choose from options of computer games, board games, card games, outside games, or something else.)
2:00   SNACK BREAK
2:15   Design a game (cont.)
3:30  Share our games
3:45   Wrap up

Beginning with playing games was great. It’s always hard to get kids going on stuff, especially with a mix of ages and kids who don’t know each other. Having a variety of games laid out on the tables was a good way to begin and also provided a foundation for the discussion of “what makes a game?” The favorite games were Pictionary Junior and Battleship. There was also one kid who spent much of the day refining his chess game with Brad as a partner. It was also fun to watch kids make up their own variations on these games, especially adapting for different age levels.

This was also a good example of the “shared purpose” value in Connected Learning. Kids had the shared purpose of figuring out how to play a game, and this provided an opportunity to make new friends, get comfortable, and accomplish something together. From that, the whole day flowed.

Next we talked about what makes a game. This worked well as a guided discussion, and everyone participated. I wrote the components of a game up on the board and saw later that one child had dutifully copied down the same. Something that one kid insisted on for every question I asked was that games had to be “FUN!” Good point to remember.

After that, I’d planned to do a “hack tic-tac-toe” activity, but because of time and the challenge of having some very young kids that didn’t know tic-tac-toe, I decided to skip that activity. (Interestingly, later when I found the kids outside playing a spontaneous game of duck-duck-goose, we “hacked” that instead.)

Then we moved on to the best activity of the day, in which kids got into groups and designed their own games using a set of supplied materials. We supplied: two dice, four marbles, a piece of string, four paper cups, a bunch of cork “game pieces” of varying sizes, colored paper cards, round colored stickers, and a piece of posterboard. In addition, kids could use any of the crayons, colored pencils, markers, tape, glue, scissors, etc. that were there.

Kids were very creative with this activity. Some made board games with themes of natural disasters and buildings (a very rough take-off on Monopoly, but unrecognizably so). One group made a game that involved rolling marbles down a crack in the patio. Another designed a game that involved guessing which cup had a marble under it. Not all the games were finished due to facility issues, but the design process was successful, and lots of iteration happened.

In the afternoon, we had fewer kids; some had been there in the morning, and others were new. For the first time at this event, we had brought computers and had planned to do Minecraft, Flappy Bird at Code.org, and a few other things. There was one older kid who knew Minecraft so he worked with some others on that.

The others had a choice of playing more games, working on the game they were designing, working on one of the other computers, or finding something else to do.

What went especially well this year was marketing (we reached several new families including several who didn’t attend the accompanying adult event), the game jam in general, and the use of computers.

In terms of what I would do differently next time, I would like to have seen more of kids playing each other’s games followed by more iteration. (Logistical challenges made this difficult.)

I’m also thinking that next year we might do separate morning and afternoon sessions with the same activities. That way kids who only came to one half of the other would still have the opportunity to do the “best” activities. And kids who stay the whole day could either extend what they were doing or do other optional activities.

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