In my post, Teaching the Importance of Being Prepared using Minecraft®, I mentioned that my next adventure would be finding a place for my new house. Today, our Minecraft adventure is going to be all about using a strategic planning process as we cover different aspects of building houses in Minecraft.
What exactly is a strategic planning process?
It sounds all fancy, but what exactly does it mean?
Strategic: carefully designed or planned to serve a particular purpose or advantage.
Planning: the process of making plans for something.
Process: a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.
So if we take it all together, a strategic planning process is a specific series of steps taken in order to create a careful and detailed plan to accomplish a specific purpose.
Our strategic planning process will include these steps.
- Ask Questions. What are your requirements? What can you do without?
- Consider possibilities and worst case scenarios. Think about how you will respond to a crisis or change. Do you have safety issues that need to be addresssed?
- Make Necessary Decisions.
- Write Down your Plan. List everything. Sizes, Dimensions, Supplies, Times, Dates, People, Money, EVERYTHING.
- Gather Supplies.
- Double Check your Plan. Talk it over with a wise counselor, double check your facts, make sure everything is in place to begin.
Use a Strategic Planning Process to build a house in Minecraft.
Asking Questions
Ask your kids what a good building area should have in and around it. Do you need a place near water, Plenty of room for the house? Near a good supply of the wood needed? Plenty of room for farming? A specific type of view? Proximity to sand for windows?
Your kids may come up with other requirements, depending on where they want to build, and what they want to use. For an extreme example, one of them may want to have an ocean view and be on top of a mountain in a house made of sandstone.
Consider possibilities.
Though you do not have to stay near each other or near your original spawn point (that is where you started at when you first entered the world), staying near each other makes it easier for you to work on your teamwork skills, and staying near original spawn means that any new comers will find you easily.
Make Necessary Decisions.
Choose your location, choose your materials, and decide on your layout. To do that, you must decide on what rooms you want to have, how many floors will it be, and how many pioneers are going to live in the house. During the planning discussion, you should ask your kids what rooms they think the should include. Their answer could include a kitchen, a office, a storage room (with assigned chests for everyone), a display area for their cool finds, a living room, plenty of bedrooms, etc.
Write Down your Plan.
Use our FREE Minecraft Notebooking Pages and write it all down. Everything you need, everything you want, everything you expect from others if you are working together. Get it all down on paper.
Gather Supplies.
Start collecting your materials. Have your children use this lesson on Area in Minecraft to figure out how big each room will be and how much of each material he needs.
Double Check your Plan.
Before you fully commit to building in Minecraft, place the first layer of walls and make sure your layout is functional. If your kids are the checklist loving type, make an inspection list and have them inspect the house for safety. If you are living on a cliff, suggest a safety fence. If you make a multiple level house, don’t forget to plan a place for stairs or a ladder.
Execute the Plan.
Give each of your children time to execute the plan they’ve made by actually creating a house in your Minecraft world.
Debriefing after your strategic planning process.
Once everyone has executed their plans, come back together for a discussion and evaluation period. What worked? What didn’t work? Why? How could they have planned better? What changes will they make to the planning process next time? What areas in life can they foresee using a strategic planning process? How does it help? How might it be frustrating? Did everything turn out as they expected?
Want more Minecraft ideas for your homeschool? Check out our 31 Day series!
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