Sunday 5 March 2017

#100daysofvideogames Days 16 to 25

DAYS 16 TO 25
 
Another multiple update (busy week and no chance at all to write this, so I know I've missed lots of things out!)
 
There's been quite a lot of playing apps together, either helping each other learn each other's favourites or competing on scores. Steps, Pen Pineapple Pen, Six!, and Mario Run have featured highly in this! 
(Hand eye coordination, team work, numeracy, problem solving)
 
 



Pokémon Go has been played a few times this week by Squidge and Moppet, with a lot of reading names, comparing CPs, and checking how long until eggs hatch. 
(Numeracy, literacy, achieving goals)
 
 

We saw Ben Garrod in So you think you know about dinosaurs..? at the Stafford Gatehouse Theatre, and Sprout knew the answers to a lot of the questions from playing Primal.
(Prehistory, evolutionary biology)


Sprout turned eleven and requested a BoS cake, so I made him one, and I also managed to get Fallout cupcake toppers, so he enjoyed telling us all what each picture was of and the relevant power armour numbers.
(Mummy points, sharing information)
 

 

Moppet has been playing a few dress up apps, and has been asking a lot what different words say.
(Literacy, creativity)
 

We had a trip to the National Videogame Museum in Nottingham, where they played lots of new and retro games, and also took part in a Makey Makey workshop to make their own gaming controller.
(Technology, history, creativity, design, circuits, physics)
 



Sprout was watching some Piemations related to a game he'd been playing, and they made a comment about Stars and Stripes and hammer and sickle, so he looked some things up and then asked me the relevance, and we chatted briefly about the Cold War, communism, Russia and the USA.
(History, politics, making connections, finding information) 
 

Sprout started playing Animal Crossing New Leaf, and began by thinking of a town name; he wanted it to be made of two words, sound happy, have a last work that meant 'town', and there was a restriction that it could be no longer than eight letters. Lots of discussion later, he decided on Newfalls, and started catching lots of fish, making puns to me about their names.
(Literacy, numeracy)

Sprout and Squidge both downloaded Wallpaper Engine, and played with some graphic equaliser-type wallpapers with various tracks, some clock ones, some ones that created various types of patterns, and an animated DNA double helix. 
(Music, art, numeracy, biology)

Squidge recognised the title of a videogame in the background of an unrelated film that I was watching.
(Literacy)

Sprout came and chatted to me about some research some at Dartmouth a few years ago on rhesus macaques, which looked at their reactions to the colours red and blue. He then talked about some statistics shown on the Game Theory channel about the relative wins and losses of red and blue teams in various sports and videogames, telling me that he thought that it might be down to evolutionary psychology, with its roots possibly in the non-verbal origins of humanity, the appearance of red in nature as a warning sign, and maybe the fact that red is the colour of blood. He talked about the differences if a player is allocated or freely chooses red or blue, and reasons why he thought that all sports teams didn't just choose red strips. We talked about what other research could be done to narrow down whether the response to red vs blue is inherent or learned, such as experiments using various ages of children, and various nationalities. 
(Psychology, evolution, history, science)
 

Sprout played some Assassin's Creed, and then chatted to me about the eras in which the games in the series are set. We talked about the Middle Ages, Victorian times, when Big Ben was built/installed, and in what era steampunk was intended to be.
(History, art)
 
 
 
 
 Squidge completed his Minecraft and Overwatch multimedia pieces at art group too. 



 

Friday 24 February 2017

#100daysofvideogames Day 15

DAY 15

Sprout continued his Skyrim quest first thing, searching for Sheogorath, the prince of madness. He found him, seated at a table set for tea, in the middle of a forest. He noted the similarity to the Mad Hatter :) I commented on the similarity between the name of his Daedric artefact, the Wabbajack, to the Jabberwocky, and he asked me briefly about that. He also found the Northern Lights, experimenting with character points of view to see how they looked the best, and telling me about the real northern lights. 
(Achieving goals, following story, comprehension, physics, literacy, making connections)


Squidge played a bit of Spiral, which was frustratingly difficult, and then some Blockheads, which is always a favourite he comes back to. He and Moppet then played around with effects on Snapchat and MSQRD.
(Hand eye coordination, creativity)
 
 
 


 


Squidge and Moppet showed their grandma and grandpa their Pokedex, explaining which had the best CP, which ones evolved into what, and showing the symbols to tell whether they were male or female
(Numeracy, literacy, science)
 
 
 
Squidge showed them some Velociraptors on his AR app, and was telling me their size in relation to humans. He also showed me a couple of his new apps, including Steps, and Fit in the Hole.
(Prehistory, numberacy, comparisons, hand eye coordination, problem solving)
 

 

We all had a few games of Heads Up, using the animals pack.
(General knowledge, literacy, quick thinking)
 
 

Wednesday 22 February 2017

#100daysofvideogames Day 14

DAY 14

Before we had friends round in the morning, Squidge and Moppet teamed up on Pokémon Go, and asked me to help them write out notes of their highest CP Pokémon in their Pokedex.
(Literacy, numeracy, teamwork)

In breaks between seeing friends and trampolining in the afternoon, Sprout played some Skyrim, looking for a loot store and some specific skulls that he wanted for his collection (he's installed a mod so that he keeps them when he finds them). He also installed a 'new and vibrant' mod (I'll find the actual name if I get chance!) and showed me round a couple of the areas the show me how it made the surroundings really beautiful, and compared it to the way it normally looks, commenting on the way it made the game feel different. He later started on one of the missions and played it through.
(Literacy, comprehension, achieving goals, problem solving, aesthetics)



Squidge found his 2DS and played a bit of Pokémon Blue and Red, and also a bit of Face Raiders. He played these on his way to two activities (trampolining and jujitsu) that he really wants to join in with but gets anxious about. Engaging with games that he loves helps him not to focus on feeling worried, and although he hasn't joined the classes yet, he's made it into the room of both, and got increasingly close to joining, for which I'm so proud. The games he enjoys are invaluable in this regard!
(Hand eye coordination, literacy, transitioning)
 
 

Tuesday 21 February 2017

#100daysofvideogames Days 11 to 13

DAYS 11-13

A bit of a catch up here as birthday preparations took precedence! I've forgotten some things already, but here are some of them...

Sprout went back on Skyrim today, he decided on a couple of new locations to visit, and had memorised the compass directions for each one in relation to another city.
(Navigation, memorisation, planning, problem solving)

Squidge and Gruff played on their Minecraft world together, doing some fishing :)
(Teamwork, planning)


Sprout and Squidge sat together for a bit, and Squidge showed Sprout a couple of apps he's currently enjoying, including Six!, klocki and I Love Hue, and then they both played them, chatting about their achievements and precarious moments.
(Social skills, teamwork, sharing information, colours, observation, problem solving, hand eye coordination, planning ahead)




Minecraft Day was the day after, and the boys played on their LAN world with a friend. Squidge teamed up with them, and also built some pokemon, while Sprout concentrated on the development of his hub, talking me through the progress later. He accidentally deleted a command block, so  went and found the coordinates again and reprogrammmed the block.
(Teamwork, art, problem solving, programmming, numeracy, literacy, social skills, creativity, plannning and execution)



 

Sprout was back on Subnautica later on and the next day, which is an ongoing favourite. He worked on his increasingly extensive base, explaining to me whhat he had modified in order to concentrate on the creative side rather than survival. He showed me round the new parts of his base, and also the new sub that he crafted.
(Creativity, planning and execution, problem solving)

Squidge and Moppet caught some more of the Gen 2 Pokemon on Pokemon Go, and spent some time working out how many more candies they'd need to evolve various ones.
(Numeracy, teamwork, literacy)
















Saturday 18 February 2017

#100daysofvideogames Day 10

DAY 10

A little bit of gaming today, but I utterly failed to take any photos!

Sprout adventured in Skyrim, opting to explore rather than play the story mode. He's just told me that he's planning on doing story mode tomorrow, as there's a location he wants to reach which he needs to unlock.



Squidge eventually played some Besiege, after a few technical difficulties installing it we freed up some space onn his hard drive, and enabled sharing on Sprout's Steam account to test it out, and double checked the specs as they differed in two places that we found them. Success in the end, and lots of building and destruction ensued :)




(Literacy, IT skills, numeracy, navigation, reaching goals, problem solving, physics, creativity)




Friday 17 February 2017

#100daysofvideogames Day 9

DAY 9

So, in an interesting twist there were no videogames played by these three today. Interesting for no other reason really, than a lot of people think that if you don't limit videogames, they'll play them all day, every day. Nope! They've played make believe games together, done some handstand competitions, watched a couple of tv programmes, tasted some Japanese candy when their Tokyo Treat box arrived, helped me tidy up (voluntarily)... but no videogames :)
(Listening to their own bodies, following what interests them)
  

Eating the Japanese version of Hula Hoops





Thursday 16 February 2017

#100daysofvideogames Day 8

DAY 8

On our way to trampolining today Sprout's favourite song came on the radio, and he chatted about the song, the game he knew it from, game sountracks, which led game reboots and their relative successes (or lack of), and reasons why he thought that might be. 
Squidge asked me how many people were coming trampolining, and when I said 'about 30' he asked how many that was compared to a Minecraft stack of items, so I told him about half.
(Music, making connections, problem solving, media, marketing, retail, numeracy)

After trampolining, Squidge used some money he'd saved to get he and Sprout a couple of goes on the arcade, and I helped Moppet out too, so she went on a horse ride game, Mario Kart and Super Bikes 2 (which she LOVED!), and the boys raced each other on Super Bikes 2 (coming 1st and 2nd in the multiplayer race) and then Mario Kart (3rd and 4th).
(Sharing, social skills, hand eye coordination, numeracy)






 Back at home Squidge wanted to set up ARK for Gruff to play with him, so we looked at how much it was, whether we could afford it, whether Gruff's PC would run it, and when the site said that it wouldn't, we crossed checked the figures and tried to decide if it might be worth trying.
(IT skills, search skills, numeracy, sharing, teamwork)


Wednesday 15 February 2017

#100daysofvideogames Day 7

Squidge and Moppet started the day by playing some Mario Kart together. 
(Teamwork, social skills, fun!)


Squidge watched a video of a new Rocket League update, called Rumble, so we looked at the different menus, and did some googling, until we found where it was, then he played it for a while. He won the first two matches and was really proud :)
(Literacy, hand eye coordination, internet search skills)


Sprout and Squidge played Boid together for a while, which is a  fast paced strategy game based on the competitive survival of organisms. They got annoyed wth each their after a while, so I helped them both move onto other things. 
(Hand eye coordination, social skills, teamwork, problem solving, survival of the fittest, evolution, science)

Squidge played Overwatch for a while by himself, and calmed down after arguing, then moved onto Skylanders Imaginators and worked on levelling up.
(literacy, social skills, hand eye coordination, numeracy, creativity) 

Sprout played on Fallout 3 for a while, doing the standard story.
(Literacy, comprehension, history, goals, problem solving) 

Squidge then moved onto his PC to play Ark, and asked me for help finding out how to craft items, then went and found the objects with which to do so.


(Literacy, problem solving, working towards a goal, internet search skills, following instructions)

Once Gruff was home he and Squidge went on their new Minecraft world and worked on their new mob farm.
(Teamwork, working towards a goal, problem solving, literacy, numeracy)