Patterns & programming Just two words I picked up today in school. Other observations - boys seem more competative when making their programs and dont want to share how they created something with others. While girls more happy to help each other.
School B was first in the morning lesson 2 today. Talked kid s through drawing their square with the instructions being written on the blackboard!!! Half way through one of the kids pointed out that the list of instructions on the board was a pattern (move, turn, move turn etc) which surprised me but it was good to see they are noticing things about creating programs. Have a new secret weapon to demonstrate the instructions (my RC dalek) which seems to help get the point across about following the instructions in the correct order. They go onto their machines and start their programs with some not taking long to get their squares drawn on screen. When each pair had finished I got them to draw rectangles and triangles, some even did circles without me even saying. However the ones that finished first decided to experiment and came up with some of the following patterns.
Again another enjoyable lesson had by all, teacher enjoyed it more and was impressed about what the children had managed by themselves.
After lunch its school A, the kids are happy when they see the dalek is back too. This lesson is a bit of a test to see how they get on with scratch. I gave an example of how to navigate using move and turn again using my trusty dalek along with some Doc who toys to plan the route we worked together with kids giving me instructions to get the dalek round them all.After this I then got them to follow a path through shapes on paper to create their own instructions to put onto scratch. Everyone managed to get the paper part done ok, when we got onto the computers it was a bit harder this week and this is reflected in the evaluations given. Left turns were a problem for most although the kid to finish first put me right on it(yeah was embarrasing having an eight year old explain the difference in the left and right turn scratch blocks) however everyone tried while only two managed to get their screen looking like the map on their paper. When asked on evaluation what they did today one reply was programming!! another creating a set of instructions!! So another good day had by all. :) :) :)
The picture showed me how to do something new, and I'm eight years old!!!
Posted by: Xander Ambrose | 02/25/2010 at 02:41 AM
Well done Xander :) keep up the good work.
Posted by: Amanda Wilson | 02/26/2010 at 09:51 PM