My Heroscape Class - Day 6!

[Pumpkin_King]

I may have mentioned in a thread before that I was given the opportunity to teach a subject at a local homeschool co-op. Last year I had taught science, and the kids there absolutely adored me, for some reason. Hard to see why, right?

I mean, if I weren't me, I wouldn't let my kids near myself. But I digress.

This time around, I wanted to pick something non-academic. Since no one had picked "board games," which was an actual subject, I picked that and chose Heroscape. The leaders of the groups said okay, to my astonishment. Here's some pictures of the room and the five maps I set up.






I wanted to make some small maps just so they could learn the basics, at least for the first week. I also set up some Basic Game armies.

It was murder on my Master Game-playing self to actually pick one squad of Gladiatrons. I kept wanting to reach for that second squad and the Blastatrons...but I had to remind myself these armies are for learning the game only. Like training wheels. Training armies.

While I waited for my class to start, some of the other parents/teachers asked what Heroscape was. I thought up a quick explanation that was pretty apt, I think: "It's like playing Army Men, but with rules to it." The parents accepted this, but I was rather disheartened to find that one parent had pulled her boy out of the class that morning before he'd even gotten to participate in it, presumably because she didn't want him playing war games. Oh, well.

I had a total of eight boys in my class, from 3rd-5th grade, and it was an absolute blast. It was pretty hectic teaching all these kids the basics of attacking and moving in the Basic game. Each picked an army they liked, and there was a good mix. One of the parents stayed in too see what it was all about, and she seemed very interested. She even helped some of the boys with remembering how to find their attack and defense numbers! She grasped the basics of the game very well; hopefully, she buys a set for her son.


(Note: this boy isn't playing by himself. The other boy had stepped out for a second.)


All in all, it was a good forty-five minutes. Each group got their game done. Despite my mother's repeated "They aren't getting this, it's too complicated," () only one boy didn't quite grasp the concepts fully, but this is a six-week class. There's plenty of time for him to fully get it. Stay tuned next Thursday for when I post pics from that day. We're going to play another Basic game to reinforce the concepts, then hopefully move on to Master the week after that.