I met with a local homeschool group to do some coding (“turtle art”). There were 13 students (mixed ages) and I have 6 laptops, so they partnered an older with a younger and had 1 triple. We utilized MIT’s block coding site . I have a handout with simple steps to get going. The coding challenge is about creating shapes. First a square, then rectangle, then triangle….then a geometric design. I dont tell them turn angles, they figure that out. They all worked hard and were excited to accomplish the task. They were even more excited to know that they could do this at home to make some fancy designs. It was successful.
They always start out “well” with the square. But they only put two move blocks in (move & turn) and run the program 4 times. This time we didnt get a chance to talk about putting enough code so you only have to run the program once. Rectangle gives many kids trouble, adding a second set of moves where one is different (distance) and the other the same (turn). In a 1 hour block , we often do not get to the “repeat” block. Though occasionally some kids try that out. That leads us to the wild geometric designs!
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