Resources & Curriculum

Trevor Mackenzie and Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt created this powerful book that shows you how to develop student inquiry in our younger students. They take you through the inquiry process from beginning to end, with resources, ideas and strategies to create a classroom environment of thinkers and learners in today's modern society. I found the four pillars of inquiry and the roles of questions extremely helpful when beginning to take on different types of coding with Kinders.

Mitchel Resnick, from MIT Media Labs and creator of Scratch, talks about how all of school should be based on creativity and passion. This greatly reflects the new curriculum happening in Ontario through play-based learning and exploration. I am a big fan of his work and theories and really love how he laid out his tips for learners, teachers and programmers in Chapter 6, "Creative Society".

Marina Umaschi Bers captures what coding can really encompass in our youngest of learners. Stressing that Kinders can create rather than just consume, she goes beyond just the traditional "coding teaches math" and dives into other subjects. Her analogy of "Playpen vs Playground" coding really reinforced why I prefer certain programs/robots/coding activities over others.