Enrichment Activities

Programming and Logical Thinking

Using drag-and-drop blocks, these fun games teach students about programming concepts like sequences, conditionals (if ... then), and loops (repeating statements).
https://blockly.games/maze?lang=en

Dedicated to spreading computer sciences approaches and skills to all children, code.org offers a wide variety of free, web-based activities for many age levels.
https://studio.code.org/courses

Students learn the real programming languages CoffeeScript and Python by solving puzzles.
https://studio.code.org/courses

This website offers a variety of free courses including Python, Java, and web development. Suitable for older children.
https://www.codecademy.com/catalog

A captivating game that teaches programming concepts like conditionals (if ... then) and loops (repeating statements) through a series of puzzles.
http://compute-it.toxicode.fr/

This site offers projects for beginners through intermediate programmers using the Scratch programming language. Each project includes instructional videos along with a project template to help students get started.
https://csfirst.withgoogle.com/c/cs-first/en/curriculum.html

Khan Academy offers a wide variety of self-paced computer science courses for middle- and high school students. See https://www.khanacademy.org/computing

Kodable is an adventure game where young students use logical thinking and computer science concepts to solve the levels. Available in the iTunes store for iPad, iPod, and iPhone.

A challenging game of logic where you create colorful little machines that must behave correctly.
https://logicbox.jahooma.com/

Suitable for older children, Lightbot introduces logical thinking and computer science concepts like loops (repeating statements) and functions (blocks of reusable code) while students guide a little robot through challenging puzzles. Available for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android.

The small and versatile Raspberry Pi circuit board started a revolution in robots and home computing. See https://www.raspberrypi.org/

Also used in our curriculum, Scratch provides a drag-and-drop language for creating animations, music videos, games, stories, and artwork.
https://scratch.mit.edu

A simplified version of Scratch for younger students. Available as an app for iPad, Android, Chromebook, and Kindle Fire.

An introduction to the text-based programming language JavaScript:
http://silentteacher.toxicode.fr/hourofcode

Students learn the Swift programming language by solving engaging puzzles in a 3D world. Available only for iPad.

Students can create 3D shapes suitable for printing by using drawing tools or by coding. In addition, TinkerCAD offers simulations that teach electronics.
https://www.tinkercad.com/learn

Students assembled 3D shapes suitable for printing.
https://www.blockscad3d.com/editor/

Developed by Google, this 3D game explains rules for safety and responsible conduct online.
https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/interland/landing/kind-kingdom

The websites listed here are suitable for self-directed learning outside school.
For a list of websites used in our classes and curriculum, please visit the Google Classroom or website links provided by your child's teacher when each class begins.
For additional learning-at-home suggestions, see Commonsense Media.
To see tips for helping your child visit https://support.code.org/hc/en-us/articles/360041788871-How-can-I-help-my-child-learn-computer-science-when-I-don-t-know-how-to-code-