How It Works

The Play Real Game is designed as a journey. Each session represents a step of the journey, and each subsequent step builds on the previous one. The journey is divided into sessions. Some sessions are followed by optional activities and discussion segments.

Session 1: Playing a Role
Students are introduced to The Play Real Game and to the life/work roles they will assume and explore throughout the program.
(about 60 minutes)

Session 2: Playing Real
Students practise map skills; make housing, transportation and other lifestyle choices; create and name their neighbourhoods.
(about 60 minutes)

Session 3: Real Skills
Using their Role Profiles, students work together to identify and define the skills contained in their roles, and to locate ten key skills in their neighbourhoods and their town.
(about 60 minutes)

Session 4: Real Town Services and Businesses
Students discover town services and businesses. They choose buildings to represent the services and businesses, colour and customize them, and place them on their Neighbourhood Maps.
(about 60 minutes)

Session 5: Real Hiring
Students locate the jobs connected to their Town Services and Businesses and list them on their Neighbourhood Maps. Then, through a simulated hiring process, all students find jobs.
(about 60 minutes)

Session 6: Putting a Town Together
Students combine their five Neighbourhood Maps with the Downtown Map to create a complete town. They decide on a town name and create welcome signs for their town.
(about 60 minutes)

Session 7: Working World
Students explore different work search methods, and find the remaining Role Profiles for the workers needed in their neighborhoods. They also locate the geographic areas from which the new workers came on a world/country/local map and connect these locations to their real-life town.
(about 60 minutes)

Session 8: Real Needs, Real Solutions
Students identify key attributes of their town services, businesses, recreation and entertainment in response to a proposal from a company called Kids' World Inc.
(about 60 minutes)

Session 9: Real Rehearsal
Students prepare and rehearse responses to questions about services and businesses in their town, and about the people who work in them. The facilitator, in the role of a representative of Kids' World Inc., asks a series of questions about the kind of services, businesses and qualified workers available in town.
(about 60 minutes)

Session 10: Real Play
Parents/guardians, teachers and invited guests from the community assume roles as executives of Kids' World Inc. and question the townspeople (students) about the services, businesses and workers' qualifications their town would be able to offer if Kids' World Inc. were to establish a new facility there.
(about 60 minutes)