Bringing The Playground Into The Classroom

I use Nintendo Land with Year 5 classes (10 years old). It creates an experience that's like a digital gathering similar to the school playground. This is not only a good way to create engagement but also offers some children an unusual chance to excel and participate.

The game takes the real-world play and brings it into the classroom. In doing this, it also creates a calmer way for children not comfortable with the noise and chaos of the playground to get involved.

Disposition

Gain Confidence In Social Play

TRANSFORMATION

The calmer more structured play the game creates impacts those children often excluded from playground games. It's a quieter safe space where they gain confidence to see these playground interactions as something they can enjoy.

Relationships

Playful Friendships

TRANSFORMATION

Playing Nintendo Land created a chance for the children in the class to form teams and friendships without the pecking order and noisy chaos of the playground.

The Power Of Humour and Dance

We play Elite Beat Agents on separate devices in the classroom. The children play in groups and we then reconvene to compare how we got on, what the story was about, and how that made us feel.

Elite Beat Agents can seem like a frivolous rhythm game, however, in the classroom, it has a range of benefits. The experience as a whole is one of using dance and humour to help the people in each of the stories feel good.

There are a range of topics you can take on in the different rhythm-driven stories. Many of them focus on self-belief and self-confidence. Our role in the drama is to get involved and play along to communicate our hopeful intent and empathy.

Physical Health

Getting Active With Dance Moves

TRANSFORMATION

The characters in the game perform dance moves that we choreographed in Drama and PE lessons as a class. We did work around understanding movement, our bodies and the enjoyment of dance.

Identity

Finding Confidence To Empathise

TRANSFORMATION

The class wanted to do well in the game because they built empathy with the characters in the story, who they wanted to help.

Activities: Children found that the following related activities worked alongside playing Elite Beat Agents:

Create Your Own Story

CREATIVE ARTS

The class worked to create their own Elite Beat Story and premiered it at the end of term.
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World Book Day

MAKING AND DESIGNING

The class made their own World Book Day outfits.
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Maths Driven Stories

We played the Professor Layton games through as a class. This gave me the chance to pull out some of the specific challenges and puzzles for us to work on together. This was pretty straightforward Maths and Logic work but the children had the incentive of seeing the story move forward.

Beyond playing the game, Professor Layton became a fun character for more general Maths work. He offered a context for topics that can be dry and academic while rewarding outside-the-box thinking.

Because the games are available on different platforms (DS, 3DS and Switch) they were available to many students to play at home after school.

Igniting Reading With Courtroom Drama

We played Phoenix Wright as a simple replacement for the end-of-day reading time. But it soon became more than that as the characters and scenarios captured the children's imaginations.

As the game is rated for 12 year-olds I needed to get parental consent before we played as a class. I ensured parents understood that the game included "moderate violence and mildly offensive language. The majority of violence featured in this game is implied through still images and narration."

Because the children were aware this consent had been needed, the play sessions had an added air of excitement to them. I have used the game in class for over 10 years (originally on iOS, then Wii and then Switch). I have only ever had one parent decline, and in that case, ensured there was some related work for them.

The sessions are with me reading the story (complete with made-up voices which they love). We usually take about an hour per session, which grows week-on-week as you get to know the characters. As you play you need to deduce facts and make choices which the class collaborate on together.

Knowledge

How A Courtroom Works

TRANSFORMATION

The children gain an understanding of how a courtroom functions. The different roles and how important evidence is.

Behaviour

Active Listening

TRANSFORMATION

The children learned how to listen actively to a text ready to pull out evidence and cross-examine witnesses in the game.

Activities: Children found that the following related activities worked alongside playing Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney:

Percy Jackson

READING

The detective angle of the game let the children to read through the Percy Jackson books.
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World Book Day Outfit

MAKING AND DESIGNING

The class created outfits to dress up as Ace Attorney characters for World Book day.
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