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Sunday, December 6, 2015

Hour of Code

This week schools across the planet are participating in the Hour of Code. I know many of you dismiss coding as something you don't know enough about to teach your kiddos. I will be perfectly honest with you right now-I had to Google the other day directions on how to upload music from Itunes to my phone. I am not the most tech savvy person. However, I understand this. If you log on this site:



and just play with the games a little bit, you will get it too. This is something you can do whole group on a smartboard or put up on the computers in your small groups for this week. The kids love it and they are getting a huge dose of critical thinking and spatial reasoning skills. The other thing I love about it is they are learning through trial and error. When it doesn't work they can't just give up, they have to go back and look at the code they wrote and identify their mistake and try again. It teaches resilience!

Terri gave some other resources on her blog here:





I am doing a Coding Club with my kiddos this year 2 mornings a week before school starts. These kids have been coming into school 45 minutes early to learn about technology. We are going to have a little celebration this week for the Hour of Code, but I'm just so proud of them!




I don't mean to sound like the Life cereal commercial-but try it, you'll like it! :) 





4 comments :

  1. My principal sent out Hour of Code information last week, but I honestly wasn't sure what to do with it. You've given me hope that I can figure this out. I just played with the Star Wars one, and I can see how kids would enjoy this a lot. I'm hoping my non-readers can manage this, since there is some text but maybe doing it together on the smart board as a group will help. Thank you!

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    1. P.S. I just finished my Hour of Code, and my hand is not particularly happy. It was fun though. I can see how kids would eat this up. Thanks again.

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  2. P.S. Are the Star Wars, Frozen, and Minecraft coding games available only this week?

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    1. I don't think so-I think they are available year-round, but I know a guy from Code.org, let me ask him. :)

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