Primary No Screen Coding!

One of the joys that I get to see every day is our younger students discover the world of STEM and Coding working with Botley the Coding robot by Learning Resources.
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Click here to see the Botley Coding Robots by Learning Resources

​And every few days our Life Skills students come and participate as well. These students are such a joy to work with and they are always very excited to engage in learning. This month their focus has been on working on directional words and creating and executing sequences. We used Botley robots from Learning Resources to practice and assess these skills. Based on their interest, we worked together to either do some synchronized robot dances with a teacher or set up a Pac-Man style 
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These little robots work really well for little minds because they do not have a screen. All coding is done with the hand-held remote. They enjoyed designing their own paths and places their robots could go, setting some goals, and then coding them to see them in action!

Pre-K students work on design thinking by being presented with the challenge to use the line portion of the cards to design a continuous path for Botley. They know that they have done it successfully because Botley will cheer for them that they have done it right. 

Kindergarten and 1st grade students expand on their knowledge by creating their own challenges to collect the ball and get it into the target. Some groups decide to challenge themselves by adding certain challenge elements like, "you can't use the forward button", "you have to touch every square", or "avoid the obstacles".