Hour of Code

This week was dedicated to computer science. December 8 to the 12, millions of students experienced the Hour of Code! This is an amazing program that teaches the kids, as young as kindergarten, how to code.

I spent an entire Saturday learning how to teach my students to code. It was an awesome training! You teach coding not only with computers but with activities in the classroom as well. There are kinesthetic activities to teach code!

Am amazing statistic is only 15% of all computer programmers are women or African Americans. One of the focuses of this week was to show these two groups that coding is for everyone and it can be done by everyone!

My kids loved it. They could not get enough of it. On Monday, we talked about binary code. I explained that each letter has a code (pattern) that is read by the computer. I showed them all of the binary codes for the letters of the alphabet.  They found their first initial and made the code using black and yellow beads. We then put their beads on a black pipe cleaner and voila, they went home with a binary code bracelet! They loved it!

They spent time all week coding. I set up a class on code.org and they all had a login card. They all started on playlab. As they finished each puzzle, it became harder and harder. They did not give up. They persevered through the tough puzzles and they loved it. There were no tears or yelling I can't do this!

My kids completed playlab! They went onto Flap Codes and created their own floppy bird games and had their neighbors try to play their games! Some even completed Flap Codes and have begun The Hour of Code! They love tjis because it is Angry Birds! They have to get their birds to the pig!

My kids are first graders! They are 6 years old and they persevered through the difficult puzzles and laughed and chatted with each other throughout. What I loved was there were some kids who are reserved but they jumped right up to help a classmate with a puzzle they were having difficulty with!

The hour of code was truly one of the best experiences for my students!!!!!