Coding Club

I know what you're thinking-you have no interest in coding, wouldn't even know how to start doing this with your kids. I will confess that at one point I thought the same thing. Our school half-heartedly participated in Hour of Code last year (by that I mean about 2 teachers participated-it was supposed to be a school-wide initiative). But the kids LOVED it and picked it up very quickly. More quickly than I did in some circumstances. So I attended a training about it this summer run by Code.org.

The lessons are very easy to follow and most of them actually have nothing to do with technology. You are having them give commands to a partner-take a step forward, another step forward, another step forward, turn right, etc. You are having them do a pattern of movement to illustrate a loop command.

Well, I held my very first meeting this week with the Kinder and 1st Grade students who signed up for my Coding Club this week. I have to do it early in the morning because my afternoons are already committed to my book clubs, Student Council and faculty meetings. I have not had success with morning activities because for many parents even getting the kiddos there on time regularly can be challenging. Asking them to come in a 1/2 early is a big deal. But I had about 20 kiddos attend! I showed them the following video (  I love that the narrator is a girl! :)

CodeStars

We have all heard that the jobs 20 years from now have not even been invented yet. If you think about it, when we were young we didn't have cell phones, the internet, ipods, ipads. People didn't check out at the grocery store with credit cards or read books on a Kindle. They were not even a possibility in our minds back then. Imagine what jobs these kids will need to be prepared for! Check out Code.org or other coding instruction sites and see how easy it is to include this in your curriculum.