Example
Gem Quest: teaching a 6-year-old to count in 2s, 5s and 10s
Most of what I build is for grown-ups. I wanted to go the other way entirely and build for the hardest audience there is, a Year 2 child (age 6–7) who can barely read, has the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel, and will abandon anything that isn't fun in about four seconds.
So I made Gem Quest, a short interactive maths lesson that teaches counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, dressed up in the blocky voxel-game style that every kid this age already loves. It runs entirely inside a Rise code block.
The design problem: they can't read well, and they'll cheat!
Two constraints that shaped everything i did...
First, minimal reading. A weak reader can't be handed a wall of instructions. So every one of the seven sections is narrated; a children's entertainer style voice tells them what to do, and the on-screen text is short, huge, and backed up by what they can see.
Second, kids pattern-match instead of learning. Build for young kids and assume they will find and exploit every shortcut you leave lying around!
The narrator buddy
At the start of the course, kids pick one of three blocky pixel-face explorers. Their chosen character becomes the course narrator. Whenever a voice-over clip plays, the explorer slides in from the left with a blocky speech bubble showing what's being said and slides back out when the audio finishes. It gives the narration a face, lets early readers follow along with the text.
Levels are gated; they have to earn the next one
Kids can't skip ahead. The next button stays locked until the current level's activity is complete. The hotbar shows future levels with a padlock so they can see there's more to unlock, and completed levels stay lit so they can revisit freely.
The contrast
I posted a very different course earlier this week, the Discount Decoder, aimed at older learners tackling percentages. Same engine, same tool, completely different skin, reading level, and tone. That's the point I'd leave you with; the pattern - narrated, tap-driven, one idea per screen, mistakes are safe, reward in context, counting stays concrete, scales from a six-year-old collecting gems to a teenager decoding a sale price. Only the surface changes.
Tools used: Canva, Gemini and Rise Canvas
4 Replies
Thank you for sharing your talents. Well done! You certainly have captured the attention of the little people in my home 😄
I really like this! Where should I start to learn how to start using code blocks in Rise like this?
That's a good question... the 'using code blocks in Rise' part is the easy part, you only have 2 options, paste raw code or upload a project as a zip file if you want to bundle other dependencies (Images, audio, video)... The harder part is the coding. If you've never written code then using an LLM can help; but that often has it's own challenges and can be very frustrating when you get into a prompt marathon! Rise iframes also have some restrictions that can further frustrate. Not impossible to overcome but often very frustrating even when using the most proficient LLM's. Then baking in accessibility, mobile responsiveness etc etc... can be too much for some.
For this course and others I've shared I use my Rise Canvas app to build the framework of the slides (sections), then I use my own custom course builder to make the navigation & transitions work. I bundle everything in a zip file and upload as mentioned above.
Rise Canvas is not affiliated with Articulate® or Rise 360®.
Thanks so much for sharing! This week I added my first rise code block to a course I am working on but it was a VERY simple interaction- Just a question to reflect on and then a click and reveal answer. I would love to learn more about coding- and use more coding in eLearning.
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