Students in grades Kindergarten through third grade have been busy coding. Ask any kindergartner what an "algorithm" is or what "debug" means. They can probably tell you!
Students participated in several "unplugged" activities to build the foundation for the coding concepts they would later use on the computer. Young children often learn best when first presented with concrete, hands-on materials and then connecting that experience with visual and abstract representations. Here are some of the activities we did.
Move It, Move It Maps
Kindergarten and first graders created maps with a hidden picture of a smiley face and guided a partner to the hidden picture using body motions as commands for each step of the task. Students really got creative with this. When asked what they liked about the activity, first grade students said the following.
"I liked when the person walking got to the smiley face." (AA in A1)
"I liked that it was a mystery and you had to find where the smiley face was." (MA in A2)
"It was a game." (NK in A2)
"I liked that you needed to jump." (TV in A2)
"It was like programming a robot and telling it what to do." (HZ in A3)
"It was fun because it was a mystery." (SG in A3)
"I liked going where the person tells me to go to find the smiley face." (AR in P7A)
Other students in P7A liked setting up the maze (JV & DS), guessing (AHC, MLB, & MLP), programming (SS), and moving their bodies (AW & AA).
Real-Life Algorithms: Paper Airplanes
Third graders built a foundation for algorithms by making paper airplanes. Students sorted visual directions, determined which steps were needed, put them in order, and then followed the algorithm to make a paper airplane. This activity showed students that algorithms can be found in many real life scenarios. It also reinforced that steps need to be in the right sequence to reach an intended outcome.
