We started our coding club a few weeks ago with 3rd and 4th grade students. We have close to 70 kids meeting in the library/computer lab after school one day per week to learn about coding.
Several of our 4th grade students participated in the club last year, but there are also a lot of newbies. All the students at Prairie Hill used their computer lab time in December to celebrate Hour of Code with Code.org. That got a lot of our students excited about the idea of coding!
The matrix isn't perfect, but it's a good start.
So far, we've been using Scratch to show some basic programming moves. We created a matrix for students to give them ideas of what to work towards. Now that we've got some of the basics down, we'll start giving more options to explore and for students to create video games, movies, stories, or whatever else they want!
During January, the students in 3rd grade read picture books and created short video reviews for our younger students using an iPad app called Chatterpix.
The first step, of course, was selecting and reading a picture book. I challenged the students to find one that they hadn't ever read before. After that, they filled out a summarizing sheet using the Somebody Wanted But So Then model. They rewrote the summary but left out the THEN part and replaced it with a question or teaser such as "read to find out."
After writing their summary, they took a picture of the book using the Chatterpix app and recorded the review. The kids love, love this app, and so do I because it's so easy! The kindergarteners and 1st graders have enjoyed watching them, too, via QR codes in the books!
Last week we were fortunate to receive a shipment of about 500 new books. It was so fun to see how excited the kids & teachers all got while looking at them! I tried to take some time from our busy schedule this week to let the kids explore the new selections. The kindergarteners and firsties also got to watch the picture book reviews that the 3rd graders created using Chatterpix! It was a very fun week!
Using iPads to scan QR codes that are linked to the 3rd grade book reviews.
Doing a 5 finger test on one of the new books to see if it is a "just right" book.
Exploring a stack of new picture books!
The kids thought it was so cool that students at our school had made these videos!
Exploring a stack of new non-fiction.
New book shelves and signage.
Letting 4th grade library helpers unpack 14 boxes of new books = big awesome mess in the library office!
