Project 97: Jobs, careers and vocations

As Solomon is always trying to come up with money making schemes, we tried to get the children to think a bit more this week about what they might like to do for when they get older, and the importance of different jobs.

We started the week by discussing some of the many different jobs that are available, from footballers and games designers, to bin men and priests. Rather than just thinking about how much the jobs would pay, or how much fun they would be, we got them to plot the jobs on a chart, with importance on the X axis and pay on the Y axis.  We also introduced the idea of them working for themselves, with the Usborne Business for Beginners. 

Job chart showing that pay and importance are uncorrelated!

When asked what they might like to do when they grow up both Monica and Solomon went for stereotypical choices: Solomon wants to be a computer games designer, and Monica wants to be a mummy.

Neither of their choices particularly lends themselves to a family excursion - but we nonetheless took them to a new soft play centre with a series of traditional shops for the sort of role-playing fun they always enjoy (see also Project 74: Royal Mail).

Jobs at the Soft Play

After watching some videos on the work of games designers, Monica and Solomon had to write a short composition on what they wanted to do and why. Despite our best efforts at suggesting alternative careers to Monica (and watching related videos), she nonetheless stuck to her guns on wanting to be a full time mum.

Based on Solomon's choice of career, it also seemed an appropriate project for introducing a new Nintendo Switch game: Super Mario Maker 2. This game allows users to design and share their own Super Mario levels, and share them online.  After a few initial efforts, where games were designed on-the-fly, we took our time to plan out a game in a bit more detail (and with pen and paper first) and our Mario maze was rewarded with our first 'like'.

Pipe Maze on Super Mario Maker 2

Next project: Doctor Dolittle