Our TLLP 2017-2018 Project

Introduction to our Project

In November, 2016 we met to create our proposal for the TLLP. We were very excited about this opportunity and had a ton of ideas about what we wanted to do. This blog is an introduction to our project. What we put on our application, what we have worked on so far, resources, and our next steps. Enjoy! We are excited to share our learning with you. 

Team Members

Jennifer Evans- I have been teaching with the WRDSB since 2004. I have taught different grades but the majority of my time has been in the Kindergarten classroom. 

Sue Casale- I have been a teacher since 1995, and have been with the WRDSB since 2006. I have taught grades 1 through 9 over the course of my career and have enjoyed them all. I have been teaching grades 1 or 2 (or a combination of both) for the past 6 years. I love working with my students as they approach new learning challenges across the curriculum, incorporating ways to use technology along the way.

Sarah Matches- I have been teaching with the WRDSB since 2009. Most of my time has been spent in a Kindergarten classroom, either as a classroom teacher or planning time teacher. I have also taught Grade One Health and Phys Ed and was a planning time teacher for a Junior Area Comp Class. I enjoy learning new things and setting students up for success. 

What is a TLLP? 

TLLP stands for Teacher Learning and Leadership Program 

More information can be found here:  TLLP Info from the Ministry of Education

Project Proposal

• We want to deepen our understanding of computational thinking in the early years and how it connects to the curriculum from Kindergarten-Grade 2
• Create a culture where students are using technology as creators and collaborators
• We want to create learning opportunities for students to make sense of mathematical ideas and persevere in reasoning through problems
• Allow coding and robotics to become a natural tool available to eduatores and students as they learn through the early years
• We will support the development of math behaviours in the early years as it addresses all of the Mathematical Processes for early learners. 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We read the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle 

We then looked at the life cycle of a caterpillar and used the Dash robot to follow along with the life cycle. Students used the cards to reference what forward, backward, left, right and drive meant. This helped the younger students who are not reading yet be able to use the Blockly App independently. 

Here is a video of the students coding Dash through the life cycle of a caterpillar: 

Extension opportunities:

-Make dash turn - we chose not to during this round as these students were just exploring the Dash Blockly app and we wanted them to get the hang of it first. 

-Sequence/Retell in the correct order of food that the caterpillar ate through. Set out pictures on the floor and have Dash drive through while students retell the story. A great way to incorporate literacy! 

LightBot Unplugged and Plugged

Today we tried out the LightBot app. Some students had been tinkering with the app during learning centres. Today we pulled small groups of 3 students each. They were given the task of creating the track with snap cubes first. They then needed to code on a piece of paper. How can they get their foam block to move from one end of the snap cube track to the other end? They wrote down the code on their paper and tested it out. It was very interesting to watch the students figure out how to code. Some students drew their code in the shape of the track, others put the arrows randomly around their pages. After they did that they were able to use the iPad and do the same level they just coded on paper. Check out the website and some pictures from our activity:

 LightBot Website

Robot Activities!

Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Matches spent the morning creating kindergarten friendly Dot and Dash challenges. See the challenges here

We Tweeted out some of our activities. Follow Mrs. Matches  @JSPS_K7

Here are some photos from our activities:

Mrs. Evans tried a different challenge, check out some of her photos:        @JSPSK1

Makey Makey, how do we make this thing work?

The grade one students exploring Makey Makey. They were trial and error to determine how to use a variety of objects to play two different virtual bongo drums. When this was accomplished, we increased the challenge to use five different objects to play five different keys on a virtual piano. It was a great opportunity for the students to use their computational thinking to approach the challenge, organize their thinking, review their results and adjust their approach to try again.

Add caption

Sharing our learning!

We attended Edcamp Waterloo Region today and got to share our learning! It was very exciting to share what we have tried and observed in our classrooms so far. We shared our work with Lightbot, unplugged coding, and activities using the book Hello Ruby by  Linda Liukas, as well as other ideas and activities. This led to rich discussion and ideas from all those attending the Coding in the Early Years session.

Unplugged activities and Makey Makey

Sue discussing learning activities

Sarah updating the shared doc,
Jennifer discussing her learning

For more information, check out these links to information on this discussion and Edcamp Waterloo Region:
Group notes from Coding in the Early Years
#edcamperwr

No Fear Coding

It's not just about computers... coding teaches us how to think. Heidi Williams suggests that coding is for everyone. There are many reasons for teaching coding, such as:

• Teaching perseverance
• Teaching students how to think and reason (computational thinking)
• It's about creativity and expression
• It's another way to demonstrate content knowledge (just like creating a Power-Point or display board). 
• It's a way to see math in action

To briefly summarize her first chapter, Heidi Williams gives us five reasons why coding is critical for K-5 Students.
1.  Making their thinking visible
2. Sustaining Creativitiy
3. Encouraging Computational Thinking
4. Fostering Future-Ready Skills
5. Empowering Students to Take Action

I feel like this book is meant for me (Sarah). Beginning this project, I really didn't know a lot about coding. I'm not realizing the importance of coding and seeing first hand how students think and problem solve. Each student is different and coding gives them a way to express their thinking, make it visible (as Heidi says) by using the activities to give shapes, thoughts and actions to their thinking. 

Lesson Plans and Resources

Check out our Lesson Plans and Resources that we have collected so far:

Lesson Plans and Resources

Block Coding

Today we explored the Wonder Pack! Meet Dot and Dash, some pretty cool robots. We learned how to block code the robots to make them talk, move, light up and more.



We explored the robots ourselves using the Blockly app. Here is Jen trying it out! Dash

We are learning alongside the students. Here you will see the students using the Wonder app and students are working through the puzzles to explore all of the functions that the Dash robot has. You'll notice, we get stuck! You can clap to make the Dash move and it doesn't work! Turns out we needed to clap twice. Thanks to Carter and Kate and for helping us out.

Some friends from Sarah's class explored the Wonder App. We needed to go through the quests to learn how to do the block coding and discover all of the capabilities that the Dash has. After that, we set out a track in the hallway using snap cubes and coded the Dash using the Blockly app. Here is our code:



Here is what it looks like:

Dash Hallway Track

Makey Makey!

In January we received the Makey Makey's! We were very excited try them out and problem solve alongside the students.

What's Makey Makey?

Makey Makey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It's a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything inbetween.

Here are some video's of us exploring with Kindergarten Students 

Makey Makey Video
Makey Makey Piano


There are so many neat things you can do with the Makey Makey. It is a great tool to use to introduce students to the concept of circuits and to see how they work. Students can use interesting materials such as playdough, tin foil, celery and so much more to make the circuit complete. Check out some lesson plans. You'll need a computer or Chromebook and a Makey Makey. Try the Banana Piano (Banana Piano) 
Instead of using computer keyboard buttons to play the piano, you can hook up the Makey Makey to something fun, like bananas, and the bananas become your piano keys! 

It's Been Awhile

Our blog has been quiet for awhile but we've been working hard in our classrooms, implementing our lessons that we have found and created.

We met as a team in December and continued adding lesson plans to our repertoire. See here Lesson Plans

In K7 Sarah's class, we read the book, "Hello Ruby, Adventures in Coding" By Linda Liukas. Check out here website here- Hello Ruby This is a great place to start to teach coding, even in Kindergarten! Hello Ruby has a lot of lesson plans to try out. So far in K7 we have tried
Sequence
Decomposition
Pattern Recognition
Map Algorithms

We can't say enough about this book. The important thing students have learned so far is that in coding, it is important to give specific instructions. Everything needs to be in little steps. We've made mistakes but we keep coming back and discussing them because we learn from our mistakes! 





Hello Ruby Coding