Mr. Kyle on the Prairie

Coding CLub

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The Fifth grade coding club meets in the computer lab every thursday during recess. Mr. Kyle and Mrs. Zepp supervise as kids explore the world of computer programing on their own.



 

 

   My Robot Friend

 

To introduce the students into coding as well as talk about communication and team work, Mrs. Zepp (the school counselor) and I, teamed up to have the kids play My Robot Friend.

 

My robot friend is a cup stacking game in which kids pair up and attempt to stack cups in certain positions without talking. Instead they have to use a form of written commands to communicate. The kids quickly caught on to the difficulties this provided. They also were able to make the jump in logic to how this translates to real life situations of working together and the importance of communication.

 

Afterwards we sent permission slips for the Coding Club home with all the kids who enjoyed the game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coding Club

We used code.org’s “hour of code” tutorials to start the basics. After kids have finished that they are free to do what they want. We used Scratch, a coding website from MIT, for our projects. I used the smart board to work through some programming step by step for those who wanted it. Others started to make their own games, look at the programming of other people’s projects online, or do animation. There was no rules other than participation and appropriate behavior. The kids not only behaved themselves, they worked hard – at times even continuing on the projects at home.