Introducing Computer Science and Programing with our students

Code Studio is the most popular coding platform in K-12 education. They offer fun introductory courses you can teach in a classroom. Students create programs with loops, events, and conditionals and write algorithms for programming task. For instance, in the “Maze lesson” students write programs (algorithms for the computer) that get a character through a maze. They’ll understand the importance of sequence in the programs they write; in the “Artist lesson” they write programs to draw different lines and shapes. Every lesson is monitored by the teacher who controls the student account and progress.

Through Google classroom the teacher  assigns activities to the students.

They can implement their knowledge about programming and computer skills to the robots: Dash and dot

The town where I live

Lesson Plan:
Students develop competence in Knowledge and interaction with the physical world by reading and
understanding different statements about a town and then writing a paragraph about their own town.When you are teaching places of interest in your local community it could be enriching to encourage them to tell personal stories about these places: The hospital I was born in, the park where I go skating with my friends, the cinema I go to with my dad, the train station where I say goodbye to my brother.
Level:
Primary grade 4
Objectives
To read and understand different facts and statements about a town.
To interact with classmates.
To write about where you live.
Target language
Vocabulary:
bus station, park, sports centre, swimming pool, train station; city, country, town, village; bikes, favourite places, festivals, gymnastics, kites, picnic, sports, transport, cinema, hospital, museum,
park, shopping centre,
Structures:
In my town, there is a bus station. Let’s go to the museum. I go to school on foot/ by bus.
I like taking photographs. Is there a (cinema)? Yes, there is/are. / No, there isn’t/aren`t
There’s a/There isn’t. There’s a/There isn’t a park.

HEADLINES - EXPLORERS AROUND THE WORLD

In this project, our 6th-grade students become experts about famous explorers by reading interesting and important facts about those explorers and adventures. They write their adventurer's biography with a Headline. 

https://kidblog.org/class/frank6th/posts?status=published&status=review&status=draft&tag=explorers

The Headlines routine asks students to reflect and synthesize as they identify the essence or core of their biography and their discoveries.

Later, they share their findings as experts with the other classmates. The others students ask questions in order to know and understand what mountain, ocean, river, new land or even planet the famous explorer discovered.

https://kidblog.org/class/frank6th/posts?status=published&status=review&status=draft&tag=explorers

The routine asks a second question that involves how students' ideas of what is most important and central to the topic have changed over time: How has your headline changed based on today's discussion? How does it differ from what you would have said yesterday? Then they share their headlines with their classmates.

Student responses to the routine are written down with the explorer biography in our blog: https://kidblog.org/class/frank6th

Headlines. A routine for capturing essence 

Project Geography at the English Class

Students at Primary 4th Grade have been studying the Planets and the Solar System in our Geography Project. They have learnt about some important features of the planets, our star, our moon and others planets' moons or satellites. Our learners have found out important new features of our planet and have explored our solar system. Then, after reading new information, watching a video, listenings, and having a class discussion at the end of this process, we took advantage of the thinking routine:

I Used to think..., now I think... A routine for students to identify how their thinking has changed over time. 

This routine helps students to reflect on their thinking about this topic or issue: "the solar system" and explore how and why that thinking has changed. The purpose of this activity is to help them reflect on what they have learnt about the planets and to identify how their ideas have changed after studying them. 

On their Blogs, you can find what they have learnt and what new information they have discovered and how their thinking has changed about this topic.

https://kidblog.org/class/frank4th/posts?status=published&status=review&status=draft&tag=the-solar-system

More about Thinking routines:

Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn.

Category Archives: Visible Thinking