Free Lesson Resources

You are encouraged to download, distribute and modify these resources for non-commercial use in an educational context. However, the copyright of materials remains with the respective authors and commercial use is prohibited without the prior written consent of the original authors.

Lesson plans are provided in both Microsoft Word .doc format and Adobe Acrobat .pdf format wherever possible. If you cannot already read either of these document types then a free Adobe Reader can be downloaded from here and a free Word Viewer can be downloaded from here. Other resources are sometimes compressed to shorten download times. Compressed resources are provided in WinZip .zip format or WinZip self-extracting PC .exe format. You can download a free 21-day evaluation of WinZip from here or simply download the .exe and run it to automatically uncompress the files (Windows only).

If you have any game related resources you would like to contribute then please mail me at the email address shown below. Please post questions or comments relating to the resources on the children's clubs forum page.

Resource Description

Target Age

Downloads

Reignhead Club Resources
The following resources were first used in November 2003 to run two after school computer clubs at Reignhead Primary School in Sheffield for Y3/4 and Y5/6 children. The games the children made in the club can be played on the school's website by following this link. StageCast provides excellent tutorials which allow independent readers to learn at their own pace, but not all children of this age can read so these lesson plans provide alternative resources for traditional whole class teaching of the most fundamental concepts.

To make it easier to tailor the sims to your own requirements, each lesson's sim comes with all the rules already completed so remember to delete the rules listed in the lesson plans before beginning your lessons. See the comments for each sim under the "about this sim" menu for more information on how each sim could be adapted to make it harder or easier.

If you want to modify these resources you can download a zip file containing all the Word documents from here.

Reignhead Club Lesson 1
An introductory lesson based around changing an example sim to help a trapped Mole get back to his home. Covers starting and stopping a sim, moving, deleting, copying and pulling in new characters from the characters drawer.

7-11

Lesson Plan (pdf)

Monty Mole (sim)

Visual Aide (pdf)

(Right click and choose Save Target As)

Reignhead Club Lesson 2
An introduction to making rules in StageCast based around the life cycle of the frog. Covers making rules to move characters in different directions, making rules to create and delete characters and making rules that include more than one character.

7-11

Lesson Plan (pdf)

Pond Life (sim)

Visual Aide (compressed pdf)

(Right click and choose Save Target As)

Reignhead Club Lesson 3
A lesson based around a complete game set in an ancient Egyptian pyramid. Covers making rules that use player input, rules that move more than one character, changing characters' appearances and making characters roam back and forth.

7-11

Lesson Plan (pdf)

Pyramid Panic (sim)

(Right click and choose Save Target As)

Reignhead Club Lesson 4
A lesson based around a collection of crazy little men with strange flying machines. Covers rule order and animating characters as well as reinforcing all the concepts from previous lessons.

7-11

Lesson Plan (pdf)

Flying Machines A (sim)
Flying Machines B (sim)

Visual Aide (pdf)

(Right click and choose Save Target As)

Reignhead Club Lesson 5
A lesson based around a complete game you create before the children's very eyes! Covers character creation, making new appearances and saving your work as well as reinforcing concepts from previous lessons.

7-11

Lesson Plan (pdf)

Parachute Drop (sim)

(Right click and choose Save Target As)

Reignhead Club Lessons 6-10
Resources for supporting the children to make their own
games using the StageCast skills they've learnt so far.

7-11

Lesson Plan (pdf)

Design Templates (zip)

Prototype Movies (zip)

Example Games (zip)

Command and Control Scheme of Work (Y3-Y6) Teach the primary command and control curriculum by making computer games! All the resources above collated and structured into a scheme of work for primary level pupils in the UK. Includes unit plans for each year, with learning objectives, individual lesson plans and all the game resources, templates and visual aides you need.
Much more inspiring than traffic lights and many potential cross-curricular links! by Jenny Habgood, Reignhead Primary School

7-11

Scheme of Work (zip)

[6MB]

Resource Description

Target Age

Downloads

Pyramid Panic
A version of the Pyramid Panic game made using Game Maker. This is by no means a complete lesson resource, but feel free to integrate it into your own lesson plans. It may also be of interest to teachers trying to get to grips with Game Maker as an example of how to create a simple game.

12-14

Pyramid Panic (zip)

(Right click and choose Save Target As)

Holiday School Resources
The following resources were first used in October 2004 to run a holiday school in Nottingham for 12-14 year olds. Only the GameMaker files are available at present, but lesson plans should be available in future.

Holiday School Example 1 An easy introduction to Game Maker using a simple shoot-em-up example. A mother dragon must rescue her hatchlings from a band of evil demons.

12-14

Evil Clutches (zip)

Lesson Plan (pdf)

(Right click and choose Save Target As)

Holiday School Example 2 Learn how to make maze games with this lemmings-inspired puzzler. Move a team of koalas safely through a hazardous maze, controlling all eight of them at the same time! Only comes with 3 levels, but there is plenty of scope for designing many many more of you own.

12-14

Koalabr8 (zip)

Lesson Plan (pdf)

(Right click and choose Save Target As)

Holiday School Example 3 A simple example of a platform game. Aliens have invaded the city and you must hide from their patrols in a dustbin whilst you try to infiltrate the alien base.

12-14

Binman (zip)

Lesson Plan (pdf)

(Right click and choose Save Target As)