I introduced the Kindergarten classes to a cartoon character named Flurb. Flurb loves fruit, and we have to give her directions to tell her how to get to the fruit. We learned that we can move our arms up, down, right and left (North, South, East and West) to direct Flurb through her grid. It looks like a fun game, but we’re actually creating an algorithm. As the students become more secure with the directions, we’ll learn more complex algorithms. Note that the students do not use a computer or tablet for these activities - they use kinesthetic learning, moving their body and verbalizing the directions. Thank you to Mrs. Mertens for teaching me about Flurb.
What else have we been doing lately in the Science Lab? Kindergarten students also learned lots about weather, and then moved on to Pushes and Pulls, discovering the many ways to make a toy car move on a ramp. First graders learned how to make constellations, and use them to show why stars are visible only at night. Second graders experimented with states of matter, and might be looking for changes of state in substances at home, in the kitchen. Third graders made tools to help them measure and predict the weather, and mapped the climates of different parts of the world. Fourth graders made models of earthquakes and tsunamis, and can explain how to be prepared for natural disasters. Fifth graders got to dissect owl pellets and hold some very special materials made from endangered species. Sixth graders are doing chemistry experiments, looking for temperature changes when substances combine, to figure out if a chemical reaction is happening.
Thank you to everyone who participated in Family Code Night! If you’d like to do more coding challenges, Let me know and I’ll share more resources.