Gaming@AcMW

During the pandemic, Academy MetroWest ran special interest groups online as a way of helping our clients maintain a sense of connection with their peers amidst the pervasive isolation of that period. Since then, we’ve continued to offer some of those programs – some remotely and some in-person.

Since way before the pandemic, many of our clients have felt the strong pull of the digital realm. Every day, online interaction takes on an even more prominent place in everyone’s lives. Children and adolescents who deal with social skills challenges when interacting in-person face many of the same struggles when communicating online along with new obstacles unique to the online realm. Our remote Minecraft group is designed to provide a safe, consistent place for kids to come together, connect, and work on interaction skills using this popular game as a vehicle. For children who prefer to meet in-person and are interested in role playing and fantasy oriented pursuits, we offer a number of different Dungeons and Dragons groups. These groups focus on helping children improve interaction skills with an emphasis on perspective taking and teamwork.

Class Schedule – Fall, 2024

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons is a roleplaying game, designed around improvised acting and communal storytelling. The participants will each make a character to play in a story run by the “Dungeon Master” who functions as the storyteller (Counselor). The Dungeon Master will set the scene. The kids will decide how they wish to interact in the story with the Dungeon Master moderating their success or challenges. Each session will pick up where the story left off with choices and consequences shaping and changing the story as it goes along. The story will be designed around teamwork and cooperative themes, where it will be impossible to thrive without the support of your fellow “heroes” and the rewarding building up your friends and allies. There will be a mix of action/violent (nothing graphic), investigation/problem solving, and persuasion/social scenarios for the characters to attempt to overcome. Getting set up and familiar with the mechanics can be a little daunting so involvement will require a set up day with the counselor to teach the game system as well as help everyone design and create their characters.

Please note: For the 2024/2025 school year, all Dungeons and Dragons groups will meet in-person at our Sudbury location. For enrollment information on any of these sections, please contact us at 508-655-9200 or info@academymetrowest.com.

Minecraft

Available for children aged 8-13

Minecraft is one of the most popular creative games in the world and that’s just as true at the Academy as it is anywhere else. With our own private Academy Minecraft server, this group will combine the social aspects of playing with other kids with the creative freedom of Minecraft.

With our own private Academy Minecraft server, this group will combine the social aspects of playing with other kids with the creative freedom of Minecraft. In our private server we will have daily objectives that will encourage all participants to work cooperatively to achieve greatness and to have fun! There will also be longer week-long objectives which will help keep kids engaged with each other. We will run Zoom or Discord (for audio chat) alongside Minecraft to keep engaged and promote interactions throughout our play.

This group will be run on PC. If you are unaware if your computer can run Minecraft, you can use the following link to check:

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/minecraft/11356

Gaming@AcMW

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