Recap of Early Coding Opportunities for our preschoolers written by Mrs. Becky Wieldraayer:
I was reading in TYC magazine (Teaching Young Children/Preschool) about activities to introduce young children to coding. It suggested having the children play games that incorporate math and literacy. We played board games like Hi Ho! Cherry-O , Chutes and Ladders .
The article also suggested some books to introduce coding. We first read Mapping Penny’s World. The book went along beautifully with our plant unit and our garden dramatic play center. There were gardening books in the center that included maps of gardens. Some of the students were so excited to draw maps of their plan for a garden. Other students wanted to draw maps of their bedrooms.
The second book that we read was Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding. This book talks about problem-solving, planning and patterning. We had fun coding various sequences that included clapping, twirling, stomping and jumping. The students used a Lego girl (they named her Mella) and using grid paper had to get her from a starting point to ending point. They had to do this by giving her commands such as two blocks forward; three blocks to the right, etc. A favorite activity was hiding a ‘treasure’ in the room and giving commands to Mrs. Davenport to take steps through obstacles in the room until she found the flower.
It was so exciting when Mrs. Yandell came to our room with robots ! The students were well-prepared to understand what they were to do with the robots to have them move.
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