Below is how I taught coding at Bird Rock. If you are interested in teaching your students coding, I can help!! I can walk you through setting up your class, small groups or individual students. Once you, as the teacher, walk through the process on your own (do what the students will do) you will have no trouble teaching coding to your students using the apps and programs below. They are super fun!!

All BRE students, TK-5th learn coding with Ms. Borden during November and December. 

Although our students spend WAY more than one hour coding, they receive a certificate for participating in the International "Hour of Code" which is held the first week of December each year. 

Coding in TK and Kinder?? Believe it! Ms. B teaches our TK & Kinder students basic programming concepts using Kodable and Code Academy with the Foos.  Students learn basic coding skills such as: sequencing, commands, loops, endless loops, functions and debugging as well as programming vocabulary. She also teaches them Computer Science Fundamentals through Course 1 on Code.org. 

Ms. Borden uses Code Studio @ Code.org to teach programming vocabulary and computer science fundamentals to 1st - 5th graders. The courses on Code.org contain the best of elementary school computer science curriculum, and Ms. Borden searches through them to hand pick what will challenge each grade level.  Each grade level is assigned a course that will expand on what she taught them the previous year.  Students learn and practice fundamentals such as commands, sequencing, loops, nested loops, conditionals, functions, debugging and efficiency. Students progress through assigned lessons using a simple type of code called blockly. In various parts of the course and during the Hour of Code, students create their own games and designs. Ms. Borden makes sure that the true code "behind the hood" of the blocks is shown and students understand the coding language used in creating websites. During the Hour of Code students are able to choose from a wide variety of high interest tutorials based on games and movies such as Minecraft and Star Wars.

Ms. Borden creates individual log-ins for all students at Bird Rock.  Students are given log in codes so they can save their progress and code at home. 

Coding gives students opportunities to practice 21st Century Learning Skills:

Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Effective Reasoning, Creativity, Evaluating Ideas , Flexibility, 

Analyzing Outcomes, Persistence and Interpreting Information.