Unplugged Junior Lesson

The fruit game

The children start with a piece of fruit in their hand and the idea is for them to pass them around the circle with their friends and try and get the other piece of fruit so they have a pair.

This involved them having to collaborate and co operate and come up with a system that worked. 

Lego Build

This involved giving clear and precise instructions to see if their partner was able to build the same object out of lego as them.  They learnt that sometimes what they thought was a clear instruction was not!  They began to understand that it was important to be precise with the size, colour and shape and the position that each lego needed to go.  We had mixed results but each time they got better.  They also needed to listen very well!

We could see where we went wrong and debugged.

This team had success and worked well together listening and following instructions.

Coding the Plushie

We looked at direction and finding the best algorithm to get the Robot Kid  to the plushie

We discovered that some of our instructions were not clear to follow

 It was easier when we used arrows and showed direction.

Colour by Pixel- Programming through pixels

Programming through pixels

- Recapped on how to read  X & Y axis and follow coordinates

Writing their own program for their pixel picture

Students come up with their own pixel design and wrote the program for it

- Students made a grid 4x4

- Teacher called out coordinates for them to plot

- Created their first pixel on paper

- They then created their own after reading a program and plotting the coordinates

- To finish off they create their own pixel picture and write the program for it

Maui and the Sun

Maui and the sun- lesson plan

Introducing algorithm to the Junior school was done through an unplugged lesson.  After reading the legend we went outside and using masks for roleplay we retraced the steps Maui took to reach the sun, picking up flax on the way.

Using whiteboards they took turns at been the robot and the programmer.  We worked together to debug our errors if we didn't make it to the sun.