Blue Bots

Grades:

Kindergarten and First Grade

Resources/Materials used with Blue Bots:

• Grid mats: purchase from the site or DIY
• Arrow and command flash cards
• Story element cards from Goldilocks and The Three Bears and Three Little Pigs
• Tracking sheets to tally success and failures

Concepts/Skills:

• Basic Coding using directions: Left, Right, Forward and Backward
• Sequencing
• Estimating and planning
• problem solving/debugging
• Collaboration

Instruction:

• Begin with learning about bees
• Introduce Blue Bots and discuss what a "bot" is
• What is coding?
  • How do you tell the Blue Bot what to do?
  • Parts of the Blue Bot - what does each button do?
• Use arrow/command flash cards to show how "coding" works
  • Students work together to create different codes
  • Student challenge to get from one point to another point on the mat
    • Students estimate and plan by using squares on the mat
    • use arrows to create code first and then code the bee bot
• Introduce "sequencing" by reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears, what happened first, second, third, etc.
  • Student challenge to use story element cards on mat and code blue bot to follow sequence of story
• Students tracked success and failures with their partner
  • When students failed they problem solved by figuring out the "bug" in their code to "debug" it.