A parent’s guide to Minecraft terminology: speak your child’s language
Posted on Apr 15, 2025
If your child is part of the Minecraft craze (or you’ve just enrolled them in one of our MAMA.codes Minecraft coding classes), you might find yourself completely confused by the lingo. What’s a skelly? Why are they talking about piglins? And what is redstone, anyway?
Don’t worry — we’ve decoded the most common Minecraft terms so you can keep up with your child’s adventures and feel confident supporting their learning as they explore this creative, challenging and surprisingly educational game.
Types of Minecraft
Before we dive in, it’s helpful to understand the difference between Minecraft and Minecraft Education.
Minecraft Education is a classroom-friendly version of the game, developed by Microsoft for learning. It includes special features like coding tools, classroom collaboration, and lesson plans aligned with school subjects. It’s the version we use at MAMA.codes to help children learn real-world coding skills in a playful, familiar environment.
Minecraft (often referred to as the ‘Bedrock’ or ‘Java’ editions) is the standard version children may use at home to play with friends or explore worlds independently. While still educational, it doesn’t come with the built-in learning tools found in the Education edition.
Both versions look and feel similar, but Minecraft Education is designed with younger learners — and their teachers and parents — in mind.
Minecraft basics
Creative mode
In creative mode, players have unlimited resources and can build whatever they like, free from danger. Think LEGO — but digital, and limitless. It’s a great space for younger children to experiment and explore without fear of mobs (we’ll get to those in a moment).
Survival mode
In survival mode, players must gather resources, fight off monsters, and stay alive. It’s a bit more intense and teaches planning, resilience and problem-solving.
SSP (survival single player)
This stands for “survival single player” mode — essentially, it’s just your child versus the Minecraft world. It’s often the go-to for those new to survival challenges or who prefer to play solo.
Vanilla Minecraft
“Vanilla” Minecraft refers to the standard, unmodified version of the game. No mods, no fancy extras — just pure Minecraft as it was originally created.
Biome
A biome is a specific environment or landscape in Minecraft (like a desert, forest or snowy tundra). Each one has different animals, weather and resources. Great for learning about ecosystems!
Crafting table
Essential to survival, this is where players combine resources (like wood, stone and iron) to make tools, weapons and other items.
Inventory
Where a player stores everything they’re carrying — like tools, blocks and food. Managing it well is a big part of gameplay!
XP / experience
Players gain XP (experience points) by doing certain tasks like mining or defeating mobs. XP points to enchant (see below) or repair things, and can be used to level up.
Enchantment
A magical upgrade added to tools, armour or weapons to make them more powerful or useful — like a pickaxe that mines faster.
Creatures and characters
Mobs
Short for “mobile”, mobs are creatures in Minecraft. Some are friendly (like cows), some are not-so-friendly (like zombies). They add fun, danger and excitement to the game.
Skelly
Slang for “skeleton”, a skelly is a common hostile mob that shoots arrows at players. Beware when wandering at night!
Enderman
Tall, shadowy creatures that can teleport. They’re usually peaceful… unless you look them in the eyes.
Ender dragon
The ultimate boss in Minecraft. Found in a spooky alternate dimension called The End, defeating this dragon is a major achievement in the game.
Piglins
These are quirky pig-like creatures that live in the Nether (another strange dimension). They are hostile to players unless a player is wearing a piece of golden armour.
Spleef
Not a creature, but a game within the game. Spleef is a multi-player mini-game where players try to destroy blocks under each other to make their opponents fall. It’s fast, silly and packed with giggles.
Common game features
Spawn
This just means the place where something appears in the game — whether it’s your player, a mob or a structure.
Drops
When you defeat a mob or break a block, it might leave behind items — these are called “drops”. They’re often essential for crafting and survival.
Entity
An entity is any object that moves or behaves independently in the game — players, mobs, minecarts, arrows… they’re all entities.
Tools
From pickaxes to shovels, tools help players gather resources or defend themselves. Each one has a different purpose (and lifespan!).
Food
Food is crucial in survival mode. Players need to eat to stay alive, heal and keep up their strength. Building a farm is a great way to have a constant supply of food.
Redstone
Think of this as Minecraft’s version of electricity. It powers machines, lights, doors, and can even be used to build complex circuits — perfect for budding engineers.
Coding and modding
Minecraft offers loads of opportunities for children to dip their toes into the world of coding. You may hear some of these terms when talking about coding in Minecraft.
If statement
In Minecraft coding, an “if statement” lets the game respond to certain conditions. For example: “If it’s night time, spawn a zombie.”
Variable
A variable is like a labelled box that stores information. It might store how much food you have, what score you’ve got or your current location in the game.
For example, a player might create a variable called health that tracks how much life their character has left, or a variable called inventoryCount to store how many blocks of wood they’ve collected.
Loop
A loop repeats a set of instructions until a certain condition is met. Great for building efficient code — like spawning 10 zombies in a row!
For example, a player could use a loop to make a character move forward 5 steps, or to automatically place 20 blocks in a row to build a wall.
Modding (mods)
Mods are player-created customisations that change how the game works — adding new creatures, tools, textures or entire new worlds. They’re a great way for children to explore creativity and digital design.
Command block
A block that runs code-like commands to control the game world. Perfect for learning logic and event-based programming.
Coordinate system
Minecraft worlds are built on a 3D grid (X, Y, Z), so players often learn about spatial reasoning, mapping and basic geometry as they navigate or code. It’s a key learning outcome of our escape game coding adventure.
Social and multiplayer terms
Realm
A private, subscription-based Minecraft server where a small group of players (like friends or classmates) can play together safely — these worlds are hosted on the cloud, and can be provided by 3rd party providers or by Microsoft themselves. Microsoft’s hosted worlds are branded as Minecraft realms.
Server
A shared online world where multiple players interact. Servers often have their own rules, mods and mini-games.
Whitelist
A list of players approved to access a private server — used to keep play safe and controlled.
What is griefing? (and why it matters)
Grief / griefing
To “grief” in Minecraft means destroying another player’s creation or preventing them from respawning. It’s equivalent to bullying within the game, and is definitely something to watch for and discuss with your child.
While Minecraft can be a hugely positive space for creativity and social play, it’s important to talk about online etiquette and being kind to others in shared game spaces.
How can you support your child?
Talk about online kindness: Just like in real life, it’s important to treat others’ creations with respect. Encourage your child to play fairly and kindly with others.
Set up private worlds: You can help them create their own private world or realm where they control who can join. This is a great way to reduce the risk of griefing altogether.
Help them report or block: Minecraft allows players to report inappropriate behaviour. If griefing is repeated or aggressive, help your child block or report the player.
Use it as a learning moment: If your child has been griefed, acknowledge their feelings, then help them rebuild. It’s a great opportunity to talk about digital resilience, empathy and standing up for others.
With a little support and some ground rules, Minecraft can be a brilliant place to collaborate, build friendships and learn key life skills — all while having loads of fun.
Minecraft is more than a game
Next time your child tells you they’re in creative mode building a redstone rollercoaster, or that they’ve just battled the ender dragon with their best friend in SSP — hopefully, you’ll feel more equipped to chat, cheer them on and even ask a question or two.
If you’re both new to Minecraft, make sure you take a look at our Introduction to Minecraft online session where parents are encouraged to join, to help them understand the Minecraft world too.
At MAMA.codes, we use Minecraft as a fun and familiar world to teach real coding concepts. Want to see how it works? Join one of our courses this term:
An Introduction to Minecraft (ages 8 — 13): A perfect first step into the world of Minecraft, with no experience needed. The aim of this session is for children (and their carers) to explore the world of Minecraft and become familiar with it before progressing on to one of our other courses.
Minecraft Education: escape game coding adventure with MakeCode: In this exciting Minecraft Education coding course, students will learn to code while taking on the ultimate challenge: escaping a custom-built world using only their logic, problem-solving skills, and coding knowledge.
Minecraft Education: code your own music world: In this creative and interactive Minecraft Education course, students will explore the magic of music through code! Using Minecraft’s in-game system of Noteblocks and Redstone, they’ll compose their own melodies, build music machines, and bring soundscapes to life — right inside the Minecraft world.
Let’s unlock the power of play, together.
Other useful resources
There are lots of other useful resources that you might want to take a look at:
Minecraft Education for parents
Buying Minecraft Education licences