The Clubhouse Chronicles #3: The mayor is sad and has to cry!

The mayor's letter

In episode 3 of our Clubhouse games in class the mayor sent another letter because he was sooo unhappy and sad that he needed someone to comfort him. What had happened? His favorite toy car had broken into pieces and he couldn't fix it. Now he wanted people to feel sad with him about this.

Bram (the cat) and Waren (the cook) responded and after gracefully descending the dangerous clubhouse stairs (for Bram) and ungracefully slipping, falling and getting an aching back (for Waren) they piled into their car to get to the mayor's house faster. That is, they would be faster if they wouldn't have gotten lost. In any case, they were let in to the mayor's office to find him dramatically crying over his broken car, with a pot of glue next to him. Bram started rubbing his head against the mayor in an attempt to comfort him, which did not help since Waren started laughing at the sight of the mayor crying over a toy.

Eventually Waren thought about what he could do to help his friend though, and called an old acquaintance from when he was five years old. Turns out the friend, called Adriaan Busan became a toymaker. He came over, fixed the mayor's toy car and got invited by Waren to join the Clubhouse.

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This will lead in to our next lesson about Jesus caring for his friends, as he brings Lazarus back to life from the dead, comforting Mary and Martha. It's one of the uncomfortable situations where a story is used to teach a different lesson than the original one. It's not really about Jesus showing that he wants to comfort his friends, but rather to show that he is Life Eternal. In this case the game does a better job teaching the goals than the Bible story does.

The Clubhouse Chronicles #2: A visit from the mayor!

As an introduction to the next bible story in the lesson series about friends of Jesus, the story of Mary and Martha, we had a second episode of our Clubhouse Friends. 

Waren the Cook's Character Sheet

This time as we set the scene, the pupil was describing that Waren (played by my pupil), the cook from the previous session, was watching TV with Baby Beatrice (the NPC from previous game, turned PC for this one, played by teacher) while Bram, the cat from previous game was sleeping in the room Waren had given him at the beginning of previous game. He did not join us in this game.

As they were hanging out they hear someone climbing up the stairs to the treehouse, tripping and falling. It was established last game, that the treehouse's problem was that it was unsafe. While it's good thing was that it has many rooms. They weakly hear someone shouting "I'm okay!" from the ground.

They hear the person climbing back up and suddenly hear a knock on the door. They open to see a man in a fine suit with leaves and twigs sticking out here and there. He hands them a letter with a golden trim to tell them the Mayor wants to come for a visit, since he heard of their heroics saving Baby Beatrice's mom. Waren and Baby Beatrice accept and the fancy suit man goes back down, where they hear him slip and fall again, with a weak "I'm okay!" after the big fall.

They look around the room and realize, after reading the letter, that they have only a little bit of time to prepare for a visit, and everything's a mess. They have about half a day to clean things up, but most tasks are estimated to take up half a day's time, the main things being, cleaning the clubhouse and fixing the stairs.

They decide to work together to clean the clubhouse, but don't have enough time for the stairs. So the mayor obviously falls down when trying to climb up the stairs to the clubhouse. Here as well there's a reassuring "I'm okay!" after each fall. And the mayor eventually manages to get up, leaves and twigs sticking out of hair and pockets and take place in the living room.

Baby Beatrice realizes that they don't have any snacks or tea ready and starts clinging and clanging in the kitchen while Waren talks with the mayor. They hear a big crash and some baby wailing. Baby Beatrice had tried to bake some cookies and make some tea, but her not being able to walk, being a baby, dropped everything. Everyone, including the mayor then worked together to clean things up and do the dishes and a good time was had. Eventually the mayor had to go, but he said he would surely want to come visit again.

The Clubhouse Chronicles #1: The sick friend (Roleplaying in class)

A new school year means a new year of playing with kids in class. Specifically in 2nd grade (7-8 year old) where until fall vacation I've got small little one-shot adventures based on the stories we're going to learn from the Bible.

Usually in this game you play a care bear, but since I didn't get to printing the character sheets we could be whoever, which I think is better anyway, as most kids don't know the care bears anymore anyway.

So every player made a friend and then we kind of designed a home base, a clubhouse. The clubhouse and the characters worked about the same in creating, in that you choose something you are good at (a talent) and something you're not good at (a problem).

This session had the following cast:

• "Waren", played by my pupil. He's good at cooking, but has problems with burning his food. So, as long as he can cook stuff that does not need a furnace or flame, he's good. He's also 18 so he can drive a car.

• "Bram", a black cat player by teacher (me). He's good at climbing but his problem is that he cannot speak. 

• "Baby Beatrice", a hyperintelligent Baby who is also a Professor. This is an NPC, and thus not yet fully worked out. She might be picked up in a following game.

Our clubhouse was established to be a treehouse in a high tree without any leaves. It's "talent" is that it has many rooms to host a lot of friends, while it's danger is literally that people fall off of it easily.

We open play on a scene where I ask what we are doing. My pupil decides that he had renovated an entire room for my character, a cat. A room all for myself, with a cat-flap so I can pass through easily. My character goes in to examine this wonderful gift and returns with a letter in his mouth, which he found in the room.

Baby Beatrice's Letter

The letter was from Baby Beatrice who asked for help as her mom fell ill and she did not know what to do. The friend decided to come over and help her. Bram helped Waren climb down the tree safely and as we rolled to see what we could do to get there as fast as we could we found that the car Waren came in was out of gas, and so we had to walk. We arrived and Waren used his cooking talent to make a soup that would heal Beatrice's sick mom in no time. 

We had to end the game there as the bell went, and next class we'll start with a story about Jesus heading over to Peter's house to see if he can help his sick mom (in law).