Intro to Programming

by Charles Sun

5/1/2015

There is an international movement in education to teach kids computer programming early in elementary schools. The idea is that programming teaches kids to solve problems creatively by analyzing patterns and breaking complex problems into smaller manageable parts.

Tools & Materials:

laptop or tablet computer

video projector (optional)

Internet connection

GAME (1 hr)

We start out with a game without computers.

1. I have parent A pretending to be a robot.

2. I told the kids they are to program A to move from one end of the room to another end, bypassing some obstacles like tables and chairs. I told the kids A can only accept the following commands:

• start

• end

• move-forward (1 step)

• turn left

• turn right

3. I write a sample program on the whiteboard and send the program to A to execute.

4. I ask the kids to write their own program on their science notebook and send the instructions to A.

COMPUTER LAB (1.5 hr)

1. We move the kids to computer room and try out Angry Birds sample #1 on Code.org as a group.

2. The kids are encouraged to continue with other samples. Parents provide support.

IDEAS FOR FOLLOW-ON ACTIVITIES

LEGO Mindstorm kit or Wonder Workshop robot kit 

References:

http://code.org/

https://scratch.mit.edu/

http://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/

https://www.makewonder.com/