Computer Science Week keeps getting better and better at PAC Elementary!
We celebrated the 3rd Annual Hour of Code week December 4th - 10th. I couldn't do what I do without the tremendous support from my elementary principal Mr. Davidson, and the teachers who open up their classrooms so I can barge in with my Computer Science ideas and activities.
This years playlist was EPIC with three new "coding applications" - (Dystopia2153, Google, and Ozobots) making the final cut.
I stumbled across Dystopia2153 by Teach Magazine on Twitter.
Coding + Literacy + Games + Graphic Novels = Coding Heaven :)
Dystopia2153 is a three-episode digital graphic novel that teaches kids basic coding and hooks students with a compelling and suspenseful story with unexpected heroes and villains.
Our 5th and 6th grade students absolutely loved it! It was a fantastic segway into the literacy portion of their academic day! The students didn't want to stop "when their Hour of Code was up." A multitude of students continued coding the story "during their free time" throughout the entire week.
This is definitely a MUST CHECK OUT coding website!
Our 4th grade students had fun redesigning the Google Logo. There was a plethora of creative opportunities where students could apply code. They could change colors, apply audio to their Google letters, switch costumes, apply backgrounds, and spin to name a few. They used the program Scratch to do their coding.
3rd Grade - Ozobots
Ozobot is a little toy robot that blends the physical and digital worlds — and teaches kids programming. Ozobots can identify lines, colors, and codes on both digital surfaces and physical surfaces, such as paper.
A huge shout out to Pocahontas Community Hospital for supporting my Above and Beyond campaign and giving us the funding to purchase a classroom set of ozobots!
Students learned how ozobots work, how to calibrate an ozobot, and how to control an ozobot by drawing lines - with codes - to have ozobot react to different situations. Students were intrigued and the ozobots began to take on human like characteristics. They can't wait until they get to visit the classroom again!
2nd Grade - Angry Birds
This is a great introduction for our little learners into block coding. This site has videos for students to watch as they are introduced to new coding concepts. The interface is brightly colored and very user friendly for our young coders.
Kindergarten and First Grade - Kodable
One of my all-time favorites for this age group. Students love to code through the mazes to get Kodable to change colors. This is a great introduction into sequencing, logical, conditional, and directional thinking. This application is used throughout the year in our math stations as well.
Prep - Bee Bots
I love introducing the Bee Bots to our prep students. They immediately are engaged in the "little bee". Their coding activity was tied to both math and literacy. In three stations, students had to identify letter sounds and program the bots to that sound. The other two mats intertwined math concepts. Students were given a mathematical problem to solve and then code the bots to the correct answer. It's so awesome to hear their thinking and witness their communication and collaboration skills at this age.
The Hour of Code Event is officially over but.... lucky for our students - I created the 3rd Makerspace Challenge of the year to be robotics. It makes my heart happy to see students interested in computer science. I can't wait to see what goodness comes out of the Makerspace during the robotics challenge.
