Coding Week- Primary 1
For coding week, Primary 1 completed a carousel lesson which included a variety of activities to develop their visual discrimination, fine motor skills and the ability to follow directions.
The children’s first activity was to finger paint a repeated. pattern, it was great fun getting their hands dirty and seeing the pattern come together.
Next, the children used the IPads to play ‘Code- a- pillar’. The focus of the game was to move the caterpillar through the grass to get to the star. The children developed their language by using words such as “forward”, “back”, “right” and “left”
Our theme for this term is ‘A Time to Rhyme’. The children worked in pairs to navigate their way to their favourite nursery rhyme using arrows. This game was then made harder when asked, “Can you get to Little Miss Muffet in 5 steps?”
Our most popular station was the Code and Go Robot Mouse. The children had to help the mouse get to the cheese by programming the arrows. If the mouse didn’t get to the cheese they had to go back and start again.
The children completed a building challenge using Lego to match the tower on the card. This was a great activity to help the children to follow instructions while developing their visual skills.
Finally, the children used pin the pin boards to match the pattern on the cards provided. The children found this quite challenging but enjoyed showing their patterns to their friends while developing their fine motor skills.
All of the boys and girls in Primary 2 enjoyed taking part in lots of coding activities this week as part of Coding Week.
At the beginning of the week, the children received a letter from the Gingerbread Man. The children had to look for clues around the school to try and find him. As the theme of Coding week this year is remembering to stay fit while coding, the Gingerbread Man also asked the children to complete a set of exercises before following a set of instructions to find the next clue.
Later in the week, the children had to work in pairs to create their own repeating patterns. They also made their own individual repeating pattern using paint.
The children also enjoyed learning how to program Bee-Bot and using the code-a-pillar app during play based learning.
This year's theme for national coding week was 'stay fit while you code'. Primary 3 took their learning outdoors and had lots of fun incorporating physical activity into the coding theme. The children learned the importance of striking a balance between screen time and keeping physically fit and healthy. They enjoyed interacting with BeeBot and learning directional language and programming. When they successfully programmed BeeBot to arrive at his destination, the children were given a movement card as a reward. E.g. 5 star jumps or 10 arm circles etc.
Task: Using instructions to program a Human Computer (a child), to move from one position to another on a grid.
The only code information we could use was Forward F and say how many steps (like: F4 means forward 4),
turn left, turn right.
Primary 4 learned that it is so important to be able to work out left and right.
The theme of Coding Week this year is remembering to 'stay fit while you code'.
Children were taught the concept of instructions for coding and how algorithms work.
A large part of the coding curriculum teaches about programmatic thinking - no screen required. So the pupils moved outside and took part in some paired activities focused on instructions. Pupils had to instruct their partner how to move from cone A to cone B using specific commands such as “turn right 90°”, “walk forward 5 steps” or “walk backwards 2 steps” and so on.
The children had great fun working together and learning outside.
This week, the Primary 6 pupils focussed on their ability to use and understand the specific nature of coding instructions. In groups, each person had the opportunity to be the ‘robot’ where they closed their eyes and listened to the instructions given by their team members in order to make their way to a particular cone. As they travelled around they also had to avoid cones that blocked their route. This demonstrated the importance of using exact instructions while programming so that their ‘robot’ could move in the desired direction.
They then returned to the classroom to put this into practice whilst using the coding app ‘Scratch Junior’.
The Primary 7s began their coding this year with the task of creating a game. Primary 7 are in our own class bubble and don’t get to see the younger children at school, so we thought that a great way to interact with them was by creating an educational game for Foundation Stage to play.
In small groups, the children are creating a digital book. Each page has a specific, simple instruction for the younger children to read and carry out. The primary 7s added a number of possible objects (sprites) and ensured that they programmed a code for each individual sprite. When the game goes live, and someone touches a sprite, it will do what the children programmed.
Our class soon realised how important it was to test each code they created and debug any errors. We want it to work properly for the younger pupils.
The Foundation Stage children will be so delighted to have the opportunity to play a new game, created for them by P7.
