Last weekend, we did our Hour of Code–had T. and K. come over and Cameron and K paired up to do an Anna and Elsa set of exercises while Dylan and T. paired up to complete one based on Angry Birds.
I’d say our event was fairly successful. My main goals were to have them come away with just 3 basic definitions: define a program, an algorithm and a loop (and, hopefully, a week later, the big kids especially will be able to spit these meanings out and describe how they fit together).
When the younger two started getting a bit antsy, I switched to a pen and paper activity which turned out to be far too simplistic for them. It entailed telling me which one of 4 directional arrows was needed to move this fictional flurb critter towards a piece of fruit.
Well, that took all of 30 seconds, or something! But, we also discussed everyday algorithms (e.g., getting ready for school) and then once they seemed pretty tapped out on that, they just played Minecraft.
At the end of it all, both Dylan and T. were pretty satisfied…and I was ecstatic that they are developing an interest! I love this stuff and it’s so much fun to see them catch on and just take off in their own direction with the building blocks they’re given!
So, this weekend, I took Dylan and T. to a meetup for kids! This one was on Scratch. I’d introduced Scratch to both of them before, but since I had to figure it all out with them, it was a slog and they got bored before they got hooked. I figured a class with more structure and a better guide would benefit us all.
I loved seeing their faces light up as they translated their imaginations to the screen!
This was a 3-hour session which only had a 10-minute break at about the half-way point! But, the kids showed no signs of flagging interest (even after a late night and early morning–the girls spent the night at our house, but the kids, ever giddy, probably didn’t fall asleep until about 10 or so and the big kids had to be ready to leave the house by 7:45am!).
Once we got home, both big kids wanted to continue working on their Scratch projects. Dylan even continued on after T. went home. I recorded him playing some holiday songs on the piano and he incorporated this into his creation. We also decided to record just one repetition of a stanza and then use the code to loop it the required number of times. It was fun! I’m enjoying seeing these sparks of interest for sure and I’m looking forward to seeing their projects!
