Technology Tuesday: Coding with Kinder

My kinder students have seen the "big kids" using Dash in the library and they keep asking when they will get to play with it.  I talked with the kidner teachers and we decided that during December's Hour of Code would be a good time to introduce Dash to the students.  We had school for three weeks between our Thanksgiving and Winter breaks so I decided to do a progessive introduction for them.  We started the first week using the Kodable app on the iPad.

The second time they came I introduced them to Dash and the Wonder Path app where students could make Dash follow a path they traced on the ipad with their fingers.  They had such a blast with this. 

The third week, we tried using the Wonder Blockly app.  I showed them how they could use the words to make dash do different things and limited them to the Movement, Animation and Sound commands since most are nonreaders.  This was by far the most challenging for them because of the words, but they still enjoyed it.They loved finding new noises and animations for Dash. Their favorite was the burping sound and the kissing animation.  

Technology Tuesday: New Makerspace Robots

I feel so far behind in my blogging.  So much has been happening in the library this year and I have failed miserably at documenting it. One of the most exciting things is that we have some new robot-y items for our makerspace that the students are LOVING! (Disclaimer: I really had not played with any of these things in depth before putting them into the hands of students.  I really have been saying "I have no idea how these things work, y'all will need to figure them out").

Wonder Dash and Dot: I have 6 of the Dash robots and we borrowed 3 of the Dots for a few weeks. The students love Dash because he has wheels and can move.  Dot, we don't really understand yet. There are free apps by Wonder that can be downloaded to the ipads to code or control the Dashes. The students at first just want to drive them around and race them, but now they have moved on to coding it to make it do anything.  We made some mazes using shower curtains from Dollar Tree and tape.

Even the teachers and principal love playing with Dash.

 

Sphero SPRK: Similar to Dash in that there are apps you can use to drive or code the sphero, but we had to do some troubleshooting for connectivity for these since they run on bluetooth.  I have 4 and students would end up controlling someone else's until I labeled each SPRK with their "name" on the bottom with clear tape.  The students like racing these and coding them around the mazes as well.

Cubelets: These are sets of different cubes each cube with a different function.  When you put the cubes together something happens.  We have been using the cards that come with the set to build so far.

Ozobots: Small robots that are coding from colored lines and dashes.  Students have been trying to have the ozobots trace their names in cursive and have been designing tracks for them to run on. 

All of these have been really fun additions to our makerspace area.  I am excited to see what the students will do with them as the year goes on.  Now if I could only find a way to keep them all charged.

Technology Tuesday: Kodable

I decided to make sure that I did Hour of Code this year with kindergarten but to use an iPad app instead.  We are using Kodable and it is too fun!  The kids love trying to solve the puzzles and get really excited when they get it right.  The teachers were amazed at how the app just walked them through and they even grabbed an iPad and started working the puzzles as well.  I love that now they can add that app to their iPads in the classroom and use it as a station.

Technology Tuesday: Coding Club

Last year after the excitement of Hour of Code, two teachers and I decided to start a coding club for 4th graders. (Read about that here). 

It seems like the first week of school the new 4th graders were asking when it was going to start this year. Well, we finally got it going and had our first meeting today. 

We thought we were going to start with the kids that were in it last year right now and then open it up to 4th grade in the spring again. Out if the 20 kids that were in it last year, 10 signed up to do it again (others had conflicting schedules with other clubs). So we decided to go ahead and open it to 4th grade now. We took two kids from each of the seven classes for a total of 24 kids, fourth and fifth grade. 

In the code.org teacher dashboard, we were able to set up two different sections. The 5th graders were able to start making games today and the 4th graders started back at the beginning. 

I think it will be fun to have the two combined. The 5th grade will be able to mentor the 4th graders and the 4th graders will be as to see where they are headed. A win-win for all. 

Coding Club

We did it!  We started a coding club after school!

After having so much fun with the Hour of Code in December, two 4th grade teachers and I decided to take the plunge.  I made a quick video to tell the kids about the opportunity and had applications in the library for those who were intersted.  24 kids brough back the applications and met with us on Tuesday.

We started off by watching this video

It is about 5 minutes and has lots of different people talking about coding and how they became interested in it and what they have done with it.

Then we asked the kids to get into groups of 3 or 4 and talk about the following questions:

What do you think computer science and coding are about?

Why did you want to be in this club?

How could this help you in the future?

We asked them to share out when they were done. We typed their answers into a Word document as they were sharing out and then used Tagxedo to make a Word Cloud as sort of a logo for our club.

We will be meeting every other Tuesday for 45 minutes after school.  At the next meeting we will get started coding.  We are thinking of using the coding tutorials at Code.org or the resources for the Scratch app .  Will let you know what we decide and how it goes.

Hour of Code

I finally got to do some coding with students today.  I've had first grade research going on all week taking up most of my time and they were on a field trip today so I invited some 4th and 5th grade classes to the library.  After a quick explanation and demonstration of the Angry Birds tutorial I let them loose on iPads and computers.  Some worked with partners and some worked alone.  I loved the excitement and the problem solving that I saw in these hours.  The partners would high five each other as they advanced and some really advanced far in the hour they had.  Some of the students even had a chance to work on the Lightbot app I had downloaded on the iPads because they finished the Angry Birds tutorial.
















I am hoping to start a coding club in the spring and would love to know of any other apps or websites that you have used for coding.