Coding Song Beats with Third Grade

Code “Dash” To Light Up To The Beat Of A Song

Lesson Plan for Grade 3

Prepared by Mrs. Yandell

OVERVIEW & PURPOSE

Students are exploring how to code using the smart robots, Dash and Dot.  This lesson will help prepare the third graders for a coding project they will be working on for the lower school homecoming float.

EDUCATION STANDARDS

1. Next Generation Science Standards
2. Common Core
3. Integrated Math, English, Language Arts, & Science

OBJECTIVES

1. Comprehension
2. Problem Solving
3. Creativity
4. Planning out a series of instructions
5. Write a program
6. Test- see if your program works
7. Debugging- find where you made a mistake in your program instruction and make, make changes as necessary!

MATERIALS NEEDED

1. Ipads
2. Dash smart robot

3. VERIFICATION

   Steps to check for student understanding
   1. How would you explain, in words, the code that your group wrote?
   2. How did you come up with a solution to change your program if it did not work and what were the individual steps?
   3. Why is coding important and give some examples of real life things we are able to do use from computer programming? (music, art, games, apps, internet)
   
   

   ACTIVITY

   In groups, students will prepare a program using the blockly app and only use blocks from the control and light group.  The goal of this lesson is to have students practice coding a program to the beat & rhythm of a song.  Each group will be given an easy childhood song, such as “Itsy bitsy spider,” “A,B,C..,” and will work together to code a program.  We will share the programs at the end of class.  This activity is to help the students practice for a project we will be using for homecoming.  

Recap written by Mrs. Yandell:

The third graders have been learning about coding programs and have had the opportunity to explore writing programs for our smart robots using the Blockly app.  This year, we are going to have our third graders' code lighting programs for our smart robots that flash and change colors the beat of a song, which we will use for our homecoming STEAM float.  

Last week, we practiced coding lighting programs using easy kid songs such as “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”  

The class was broken into groups of four students which each group was given a different song.  Before they started coding their programs, we practiced to “Row, Row,Row Your Boat,”  and I had the class count how many syllables were in each word and observe if there were any “rests” within the song.  Using the Blockly app, students were only allowed to use two categories, the light and control blocks.  The light block changes the color of the robots heart, ears, and eye, whereas the control category offer loops (repeats) and wait (rest) blocks.   

At the end of class, each group shared the light program, and either sang their song or asked the class to sing it along with performing their light show!  This was a great opportunity for the students to think creatively and explore coding.