Introducing Dash and Dot to Fourth Grade

by Jessica Yandell

Over the next few weeks, my goal is to make it into each grade level and introduce Dash & Dot. Over this school year, my plan is to create lessons and projects that incorporate our smart robots and pertains to each grade levels thematic units.

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit all of the fourth-grade classrooms and give them an overview how to program Dash & Dot using the Blockly app.  The Blockly app is more advanced than the Go app that I used with the lower grades and is recommended for ages eight and up.  I started their STEAM lesson by sharing a powerpoint that demonstrated how each block category on the Blockly app is used. I referred back to the lesson, “Explorers of Coding,” and reminded the students they have to give specific instructions when writing programs.  

As an introductory lesson, I let the class split into groups of four to practice programming a Dash robot using the Blockly app.  Their goal was to use at least one block from every category in their program.  At the end of class, I allowed each group to share the programs they had written.  I concluded the lesson by re-emphasizing how important it is to code specific instructions, or else the program may contain an error.

This has been an awesome opportunity for our fourth graders to explore coding and technology and apply their experiences in the classroom as they study the “Age of Exploration.”  (lesson adapted from maekwonder.com)