Week of May 25th, 2020

This week, I am sharing a great book about coding, or computer programming, called How To Code A Sandcastle by Josh Funk. It does a great job explaining important ideas in coding and what it means to program a computer to do something. The computer in the book is a robot who helps the girl build a sandcastle. 

How to Build a Sandcastle by Josh Funk

Here's a fun coding activity to try from coderkids.com that helps teach the idea that computers will only do what you tell them to do:

Code a Robot

1. In a fairly large space, put various objects around the area that act as obstacles that people have to move around. Have a start and end point. 
2. One person is the robot and the other is the programmer. (If you have more than two people playing, the programmers can get in a line and rotate giving directions.)
3. Programmer(s) give(s) directions to get the robot through the obstacle course without touching any of the obstacles. If an obstacle is touched, then the robot must start from the beginning. 
4. The programmer should only give one direction at a time. Example: "turn to the right and take a step" should be broken down into 2 separate steps: "turn to the right" and "take 1 step".
https://www.coderkids.com/blog/3-fun-offline-games-that-help-kids-learn-to-code