Program a Preschooler/Kindergartner: Teaching young students to code

-

I started off my career over 12 years ago teaching preschool children computer technology. I can tell you a lot has changed in terms of computer technology education.

Preschoolers are typing...

Preschoolers are creating.....

 Preschoolers are problem solving.....

 Preschoolers are troubleshooting....

 Preschoolers are coding!

Go beyond the Hour of Code and  make code apart of you curriculum.

 I love to introduce code to my Preschool and Kindergarten students by teaching them the basic fundamentals of coding: following directions. I begin by explaining to the class that to begin, we are going to pretend that you are robots and I am going to code you! After all, coding is simply giving a set of commands that need to be followed.

I made this very basic "Program a Preschooler/Kindergartner" Google Slide here (and you can grab a copy here) that I used to introduce simple sets of directions (or algorithms). There are several ways in which you can employ this activity; you can either do this as a whole class on a screen, or printed; you can split into small groups and each group is assigned a set of directions to follow either printed or on the screen; or you can program yourself and have the students "write" the lines of code for you to complete an activity (like walk to the door, in which I always walk into the door).

Once they understand the concept, it's time to move on.

Here is a list of my favorite coding sites/apps for little hands:


  1. Kodable- Play this Fuzz Family Frenzy for free with your students. Great first step to introduce coding.
  2. Scratch Jr.- G Available on Google Play, Google Chrome Web Store, Amazon or the App Store this fun free app opens a world of possibilities for the younger students.
  3. Lightbot- The free Hour of Code version is available online. Can't get enough of the little robot? There are paid versions available through the App Store, Kindle, and Google Play.
  4. Candy Quest by Tynker- Is one of my personal fav's for the younger students. This game is brought to you by Hour of Code.
  5.  Code.org- Code.org is an awesome resource to have in your back pocket. While your there create a teacher and student account and have your Kindergartners enlist in their online course on coding!

There are so many more great apps and sites available for our younger students than my fav's listed above. What is your favorite?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sphero indi is My NEW Hero and free activity

-
Image
We offered ten stations at the session eRobots: Robots for the Everyday Elementary Classroom. I would be remiss if I omitted the Wakelet I created here: https://wakelet.com/wake/d320d572-f125-4935-8a9d-3c9aa78851d8 . I have to say, most of the robots I had used in my classroom as a teacher. I became more acquainted with a handful while working as a technology integration specialist supporting teachers in their classrooms. And then there were three that were 100% brand new to me…. Sphero indi. What can I say about this robot, besides the fact that I am in absolute love! Every part of me wanted to jump back into the classroom and see what my students could do with this fantastic bot when I ordered it and delivered it to my door a few weeks before ISTE. What do I love about Sphero indi? Well, for starters, the versatility. With this little bot, you can do both plugged and unplugged activities. I honestly could visualize the students I once taught being highly intrigued with the ability t
Read more

Google Slides: Get-To-Know-You FREE Template for Remote Learning 2nd-4th Grade

-
Image
 If you were a game character, what would you be like? Learn about your students by tapping into their inner-gamer. In this simple Get-To-Know-You Google Slide template, your students will: learn how to navigate to a linked Website ( https://www.abcya.com/games/make_a_face ).  create and download their gaming character.  Insert their downloaded character into a Google Slide. type 3 powers that their character possess. This is the time to have them think of three strengths that they want to share with you and your class! Don't forget to force a copy for each student in Google Classroom/Schoology! Grab your copy here! Introductions: Gaming Character by Aimee Bloom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .
Read more

Tech-Know: Google Meet Students Can't Rejoin Workaround

-
Image
Have you had the experience of losing a student during a Google Meet and not having the ability to rejoin? Even if you didn’t remove them from the Meet, from time-to-time a student may lose connectivity and not be able to rejoin. We have also been experiencing this phenomenon even after resetting the Google Meet link in Google Classroom and reinventing everyone back in. Some students are still not lucky enough to rejoin!? A work around to this is having the lost student access Google Meet itself https://meet.google.com/ and providing them with the code to your Meet. As of this post, simply sending the students the direct link did not work. If you are in the midst of your Google Meet you can easily access this code in the bottom left hand corner: You can share the link to Google Meet ( https://meet.google.com ) and the code to your Google Classroom’s Stream, GoGuardian, etc. Once your student is at Google Meet, have them enter the code that you have given them: This so far has been su
Read more