For more information regarding computational thinking, take a look here!

The question then becomes, what does this look like with our youngest learners? To begin, consider how you organize files on your laptop or computer.  I imagine you have them in folders.  If you are at all like me, perhaps even  folders within folders, within folders.  The files within these folders are similar and/or relevant.  I keep my documents , photos, and videos, related to my daughter in a folder titled, “Lydia”.  Translating this to the early childhood classroom, consider common spaces and routines: art center, reading corner, cubbies, dramatic play, etc.  When children enter their classroom, they find their own cubby, they put their own coat on a hook, they may put their lunch on a particular shelf, as well as put their own change of clothes in a particular bin.  In the art center they put their scissors with the other scissors and their crayons go in the bin with other crayons.  At an early age, they are already beginning to develop the skill to organize items into particular and relevant spaces and places.

By engaging in coding and programming activities, young children can explore foundational concepts such as:

• Sequencing/directions
• Directional coding
• Conditions/If-than statements
• Patterns/Looping
• Problem-based or goal-based design

Daisy the Dinosaur is a free iPad application that invites children to explore early programming and the above skills related to computational thinking.  Take a look at this quick video:  

You will see that this application is visual and textual at the same time.  From an early reader standpoint, this application utilizes high frequency words which would be taught in kindergarten and first grade.  As seen, there are two modes, “free-play” and “challenge”. Use what you know about your group to determine how you might introduce this application to them.  In my experience, I have found using the “challenge mode” first most successful because it slowly introduces new functions.  Once they have developed the understanding of the provided functions, the “free-play” mode is more understandable, intuitive, and of course fun.

Challenge idea:  Consider having children create challenge cards for each other.  On these cards, they can write/draw their own challenges to code Daisy.  Some of the common challenge cards I have observed created include:

• Make Daisy as big as you can
• Make Daisy disappear
• Make Daisy spin for a long time

Have fun!!

First, you need to play!  Play with cubetto and have fun.  Think about aspects that will be hard for your child or aspects that were difficult for you.  What can you add to the activity that will support this difficulty?  For example, my students had a difficult time envisioning a pathway from point A to point B, so when I saw the child struggling, I would use a piece of string to show them a pathway.  Then, after a few times of doing this, I was able to take the string away.  When they were struggling with understanding left/right, after the robot turned, I made them a compass that they could turn depending on what direction Cubetto was facing.  The first book that comes with Cubetto take you through all of the pieces of it, giving you the vocabulary words to use while introducing it to the child.  And this book doesn’t need to only be used once, this can be a tool to read several times before moving on to the other books, or kept out while using the other books to remind the children of name of each piece.  You could even write down the different pieces names on sentence trips, along with its picture, to keep out while using the other books.  While I was playing with Cubetto, I kept a piece of paper by my side and wrote down the steps of using it, as I went through it, so I wouldn’t forget a key piece.  I kept these notes in the Cubetto to remind myself and for other teachers who might use the toy in the future, as a cheat sheet.  Thinking the process through before you even introduce it to your child is a key step in you and your child’s success.

Secondly, some kids will get this right away and you need to make it harder and harder for them, to challenge them!  This is such a great problem to have.  For my students who breezed through the accompanying stories, I made up my own and made them more difficult.  Then I had the kids make their own maps and challenge other children to make it through their instructions.  I would also have these children explain to their peers how they mapped out a pathway.  Soon, I could just hand over the box to one of these kids and walk away, knowing that I had turned them into teachers and coders!

Cubetto is coding toy that was donated by a staff member at my school.  We got an early version of the toy before it was even on the market!  Our Cubetto came with an interface board, directional buttons, a bag for the buttons, Cubetto (the robot), two floor maps and three books to accompany the maps.  The first book in troduces all the pieces of the toy and gives the basics of how to use each piece; the other two books accompany each map and tell a story that gives the children directions on how to move Cubetto around the map.   The children have to input the directional buttons into the interface board and then press the start button, which then sends Cubetto through the sequence of directions on the map.  The children loved experimenting with movement, directions and patterns.  As an educator, I would highly recommend some sort of toy that teaches children how to code.  I observed a number of benefits to using these toys in the classroom, so much so that I recommended them to all of my friends with children.  Some of the key benefits were:

1. The children had to think abstractly; they couldn’t physically move the robot themselves, but through patience and trial and error, they had to use a system to move the robot.
2. They had to think ahead and make a plan.  They had to first ask themselves, how will I get this robot from point A to point B and think through the steps of these movements?  This is a skill that we need to teach young children, to prepare them for school and any career.
3. They had to learn that to solve the problem they had to fail and not get upset, but use that failure to learn how to make a better plan and get the robot to move more efficiently.  They ended up liking that they failed because then they got to try a new strategy.
4. They worked together without even realizing it or fighting!  They would observe each other solving the problem and then when they would try and get stuck, they would ask for help from a peer.
5. They had to think about directions in a different way (and so did I!). The “right” direction meant one thing when the robot was facing one way and then once the robot turned, “right” changed.  I had to quickly make a printout that said straight, reverse, left and right, so that when kids struggled, they could turn it and it would give them directional clues.
6. I even learned a lot during this process.  I practiced at home and had to think about how I would teach children in a different way.  Then, when I was with the children I had to figure out strategies to scaffold and change how I explained the process.  It was hard since I was never taught how to use materials like this.
7. This whole process taught me a lot about how my students think; it was easy for me to see where they got stuck in the process of planning and moving the robot, which made it easier for me to then think of supplemental activities to strengthen these deficits.