Myst - Setting the scene

Day 4 - Starting the game

I loaded the game onto the computer and asked all children to come and sit near the IWB. Having already seen Tomonha, I scanned the screen around. We met Catherine. We talked about the greenhouse and how different the two scenes were. The children were able to talk about everything they could see, without prompting.

We entered Atrus' study. We had a good look around and discussed everything there; the photographs, the items on the desks and shelves, tapestries, books. Then someone noticed the book in the glass unit. We moved over to the book (Releeshahn) and discussed what it was. Atrus then entered the room. We listened to what he said. the children were now in awe of the game. They were so keen to talk about what they could see and what was being said. It was very difficult to keep the children from talking, they had some many ideas and thoughts abouts things so far. Then Saavedro entered the room and stole Releeshahn. Many of the children were scared by this, others just wanted to know what was happening. I allowed the game to continue to J'nanin.

At J'nanin, we looked around (we didnt follow Saavedro). We talked about the difference between J'nanin and the other areas we had encountered. This was great! It really showed how much the children had already absorbed from the game. We went to the house at the bottom of the whistling stair case.

I gave each group (4 groups of 6 children) an image of the house stuck on sugar paper. They then worked together to use adjectives and descriptive phrases to describe the house. This again was so valuable. The vocabulary was great! The children came up with words they had not used in their writing before. They looked closely at all the details of the house and lake.

We shared our ideas before the end of the lesson then displayed our work on our working wall.


Day 5 - describing the events so far.

I gave the children worksheet divided into 4 areas - arriving at J'nanin, the chase, the steps and the house. As a class we talked about the four different areas and identified descriptive phrases and adjectives relating to the areas. This took longer that I had initially thought - it was completed over 2 lessons. It was such a valuable opportunity because the children were able to use their imaginations to identify key words relating to the areas.