Logic

I challenged the third graders to coffee bean solitaire! The goal is to get down to just one bean.  I offered prizes for anyone to get down to one, two or three beans.  Lots of fun, lots of groans, and lots of perseverance.  It's a little bit addictive...wish it worked on the iPad, so I could do it while waiting in line at the store.

https://www.history.org/media/coffeesolitaire/

Three winners so far (each having just three beans left).

Scratch Jr.

I attended the Wisconsin Computer Science Summit (first ever) and am further convinced that offering early access to computer science is a must...digital skills for an increasingly digital world.

Tech skills are necessary skills for the future. Coding is a great way to get students thinking about tech and coding is fun; at least that's been my experience with my third graders!

We started off by talking about future career aspirations and how technology might factor in.  We talked about the fact that a job a classmate might be doing in the future may not even exist yet!  Then we watched a quick intro video, reviewed the vocabulary (sequence, loop, repeat, run, debug) and blocks, and jumped right into the Scratch Jr challenges. They were hooked immediately.  

What I heard:

Can I share my program?

Look what I figured out, you can add speech bubbles to your characters!

Wow, you can record your own voice!

Can we do this next week?

I figured out how to change the speed and direction.

Cool, I can customize my characters!!

What I saw:

I saw students helping one another.

I saw students collaborating on their project creations.

I saw engaged students.

I saw excited students.

We all saw some pretty cool programming as students shared their programs on the big screen (using air server).