Naomi Meredith  00:00

Looking for Hour of Code ideas for elementary STEM? While there is an abundance of free resources out there, it can be overwhelming navigating them all and finding what will work best for your classroom. In this episode, I will break down how to navigate the resources for K through five, what devices you can use or not use, and instructions on how you can set up the Hour of Code in your classroom. 

Naomi Meredith  00:55

Before we jump right into this episode, I have created a freebie for you to help capture all the learning that you’re going to have throughout this episode, and all of the resources and how to get that all organized for K through five STEM. So you can download that free resource at Naomimeredith.com/tpthourofcode. This will also be linked in the show notes, so you don’t have to memorize this. I love the Hour of Code. This is an excellent unit to implement into your K through five STEM classroom. Or, if you are a classroom teacher who’s interested in STEM, you can definitely jump right in because most of the resources I’m going to be talking about are absolutely free. To get me in the mood for this episode, I am wearing my create with code shirt that I got from Target a little while back. So it’s super fun. You all know by now I love a good theme. So, of course, I have a coding shirt or two in my closet that I pulled out during this time. I will say that the Hour of Code is one of the few units that I actually don’t write or create everything from scratch. This is because there are so many great resources out there that I personally know I don’t have as much experience as the people who are creating them. And it’s always changing. I want to make sure that my students are exposed to these materials. That is why I have that free guide for you that helps you sift through all that information. But again, these are things that I’m not always creating from scratch because there are so many coding languages out there, even for kids. I want to make sure, again, that kids have access to those. 

Naomi Meredith  02:32

Now, if you have never heard of the Hour of Code, that is okay. I am so glad that you are here! The Hour of Code started in 2013, and it was a way to get kids exposed to the world of coding at a young age. It was initially to be an hour in your school and to get kids pumped up and excited about computer science. It is also hosted in conjunction with computer science week, which they have its own website as well. The official Computer Science Week for 2022 is from December 5 through the 11th. and the Hour of Code is usually hosted around this time. But you can do coding at any time of the year. So don’t feel like you have to do it this week. The first time that I was exposed to the Hour of Code was in 2013, my first year teaching third grade as a classroom teacher. I remember it was just so amazing seeing my students code the Angry Birds to get the little piggies. I had never seen anything like this, and this was my first real exposure as a teacher to seeing children coding. In hindsight, this could have been one of the many sparks that I had to get me into K through five STEM now. But at the time, I thought it was so amazing, and I still think that it’s amazing to see kids being able to write a language using blocks to control what is happening on the screen. This was way more problem-solving than just clicking arrows and playing a video game passively. The students were collaborating and problem-solving. I loved the excitement that they had when they completed each of these challenges. 

Naomi Meredith  04:13

If you haven’t done the Hour of Code, either, you’re gonna see the same excitement in your students. It is just so much fun. Because there are so many different options out there where students can explore again, a lot of different coding languages that work best for their grade level. At the time, my students, they had the Hour of Code as an actual hour where we went into our computer lab, and they got to play around with the different coding languages that were available at the time. So you could still do this as a school-wide promotion. You could do this as a week-long STEM unit. You could start it in your STEM classroom and then keep promoting it within the classrooms or at home. There are so many different possibilities. So don’t feel like you have to limit yourself to one hour or one unit. There are just so many different ways that you can do coding and the Hour of Code throughout the year. 

Naomi Meredith  05:03

So first, let’s talk about navigating the Hour of Code website. This is going to be your hub for finding the different coding activities that will work best for your classroom. As I said, this can be overwhelming at first, and over the years, they have been making the navigation of the website so much easier. The first thing you’re going to want to do is to sign up to host your Hour of Code event. This is absolutely free. I feel like this is a way for them to keep track of how many kids are participating. They will also send you some free resources or things to get you excited leading up to the official Hour of Code week. So make sure you sign up, put in a little bit of information, and then you are on your way to navigating the Hour of Code website. You’re going to see that there are different types of coding activities that are organized by grade level, which are the main types of navigation. Over on this side, you can get even more specific with the types of coding activities you would like to have your students exposed to. Some of these categories that are listed are the types of devices that you have. There’s even an option if you have slow internet. You could filter out the activities that would work best for that on the devices. If you’re an iPad-only school or vice versa, a laptop-only school, you can click on that filter, and then you can search through the activities that way. If you don’t have access to devices at all, which we’re going to talk about this in a bit, or you would like to have a station that is screen-free or unplugged coding, you can search for those options. 

Naomi Meredith  06:41

But it gets even better with these filters. You can filter by the length of the lesson if you do want it to last an hour or if you do want it to last for over a week. You can search through the different accessibility options. Play around with those filters. As I said, it can be overwhelming at first. I actually don’t have students jump right into the Hour of Code website because they can get lost pretty easily. As a teacher, you want to pick through and play around with the things you think will work best developmentally. Then you can make a simple one-page choice board. I like to make mine in Google slides that are view only. Then there are clickable links for the students. Or you could just send the links along to students in whatever LMS system you like to use or even create QR codes that the kids can scan. Definitely try to play around with the devices that you have, and see what is going to work and not work. Then you can go from there. I like to share the website, the Hour of Code website, with students after we completed the unit, so they can play around and explore at home. But I always want them to jump right in and get to the task at hand. So that’s why creating those very specific links for students is helpful. This helps prevent decision fatigue. Then you know that those specific links are going to use on the devices or, if you’re not doing devices, the materials that you have students to use. 

Naomi Meredith  08:08

At the very top of the Hour of Code website, there’s also a promote tab, so play around with that. There are some posters that you can print that have some diverse and even some famous people on there. My fiance’s favorite is the Shakira poster. He loves Shakira. So he likes that Hour of Code posters on there. But there are some really cool posters and handouts that you can print and send home with families or teachers. There are some email templates, there’s even a sticker template that you can print out, and students can proudly wear a sticker saying that they participated in the Hour of Code. There are also some really awesome videos that you can show your students where they are talking about the Hour of Code and the importance of coding. Again, some famous faces are in a lot of these videos. These are really awesome resources to check out and really dive in to get kids excited about computer science and coding. I mentioned this a little bit ago, but you have the option when you’re doing any type of coding with kids, you can have device-based coding, which is what most of us are accustomed to when students are coding on the computer. Or you can do coding unplugged. Both have a lot of value. Even if your students have experience with computer coding, having the ability to code unplugged and being able to problem solve in that way can be very valuable. In fact, you are really working on computational thinking and having students be able to really think through those problems. They might not always have that instant gratification from what is on the screen, but it’s going to help them slow down and really think through if the information that they are moving or writing down is correct. You can even pair unplugged coding with device-based coding and have students write down some of the things that they’re hoping to do in the program, and then they can apply it to their learning. 

Naomi Meredith  10:08

Here are some of my favorite coding unplugged activities that can work for a variety of grade levels. One really fun one is to do binary beads. I’m pretty sure Hour of Code has a lesson related to this. You teach students about binary code, the language that computers use to talk with the zeros and the ones. Then there is a binary code alphabet. Students can have little pony beads, different colored beads to represent the different codes and the binary code chart, and then spell their name or a word that resonates with them. This is a really great one. Then students have a physical takeaway from the actual project.

Naomi Meredith  12:24

Another fun one that I did when I was teaching third grade for computer science training is we did cup coding. With this activity, there are different pictures of combinations of cups that are stacked in a lot of different combinations. The goal of this is you have a programmer, and then you have the robot. So the goal of the programmer is to write the code out using the language of this cup coding program. So up means to hold up the cup one cup length to a turn would be flipping the cup over at 90 degrees. A down would be putting the cup down at a cup length and so on. There’s a cup coding language for this activity. As the programmer, you are writing the code that will match the picture of what the robot needs to complete, then the robot has to read your code with the arrows and the turns. And hopefully, they are able to complete the picture without seeing the picture and only reading the code. Again, this is a great computational thinking lesson and a great problem solving challenge. 

Naomi Meredith  13:36

Another one that is very similar and really popular with younger students is to do human-robot coding. You can have different cards that have arrows that have different meanings, forwards and backward. You can add in a jump, or a spin, whatever you would like. I have this all created for you in my TPT shop. Again, you have a programmer and a robot, and the programmer writes the code using the cards, and then the human-robot actually has to perform the action. This is so much fun, and the kids like to have control of each other. But it really does get their body moving. It helps those younger students with directional coding and understanding left and right, and forwards and backward, which they can apply to a lot of the computer-based programs or even when you do robotic coding. 

Naomi Meredith  14:24

Another coding unplugged option that I like to do is having a paper grid or even a digital grid. There are different markers in the grid that students need to collect using a code. They can write down the code again using arrows, or you can have your own coding language written out, like block-based coding. Block-based coding is when you see the blocks with the words written inside, and then you drag the blocks over. Usually, read it from the top to the bottom, and the robot or the program will read it from top to bottom with those different blocks. So this is like the in-between of more complicated typing programs. Anyway, with this coding unplugged option, students can write the code using arrows, or they can write using their own language of block-based coding to collect the different tasks on the paper. Again, I have a lesson created for this already, it’s all about donuts. There is a lot of fun and different challenges within this that are all completely device free. You can have students complete it together. There’s even a fun one where students have to complete it like battleship. So that is a goodie, but an oldie, and it’s fun. It’s all donut themed. 

Naomi Meredith  15:33

When thinking about adding other devices to your Hour of Code time, a fun tool that you might have in your classroom, or you can invest in Makey Makey. These are really cool because they connect to the very popular program, scratch, and students can explore conductive and not conductive materials. Basically, how the Makey Makey works is you have different clamps with wired connections that go into this hub, and the hub is connected to the computer. On the computer, you have the coding program, Scratch, open, and then you play around with the Makey Makey options. Then you can connect the clamps that are connected to that hub to different things that are conductive. When those conductive things are touched, then it will trigger the code that is written for that actual connection. It sounds like a lot, but very simple when you see it in real life. Trust me, I saw something very similar in real life, and the STEM teacher in me got really excited. One year I went to Meow Wolf in New Mexico, and they have a part of the exhibit where it’s this big mammoth with ribs showing. When you touch the ribs, it makes a sound. Well, in my mind, I knew exactly what was happening when it came to the coding and the connections because of the Makey Makey. It’s like the raw version of it. So Hour of Code is a great time to implement those physical materials as well. 

Naomi Meredith  17:05

Another thing that is really fun to teach students during the Hour of Code is the difference between hardware and software, especially for those younger students, but older students will benefit too. Younger students really like to understand the difference between the two because there is a difference. With my younger students, I have created a paper tablet where they get to color and add in the different apps, the software. Then when they open up the tablet, there are different pieces of hardware, which is a very basic version. I knew that they would love it. They were literally obsessed with having their own paper tablet and just wanted to play with them. Definitely recommend a lesson like that talking about computer hardware and software because that’s also valuable when it comes to coding and understanding how our computers work in our world. 

Naomi Meredith  17:51

When it comes to structuring your time, I mentioned some different options of how you can get your school involved or even classroom teachers, or you might even be the classroom teacher who’s getting involved. When I first did our code, I had students three days a week. So I did station rotations and had a lot of different options when it came to coding unplugged and different websites that were appropriate for their grade level that I navigated from the Hour of Code website. Now I have students for five days. So again, I still like to implement those coding unplugged choices. But I also have the option where students are exploring different coding languages. They can try those out. I like to give them a variety, whether it is block-based coding or it is coding by typing or coding with arrows. I like to give them that choice and see what languages that they’re really connecting with. I also like to start off my lessons, whether it’s the station rotations or it is with whole group instruction, with different videos that are related to coding, which I’m going to talk about in a second because it’s good for students to hear the explanation where I’m at. I’m not the ultimate expert when it comes to coding. I am a great facilitator when it comes to elementary STEM coding, but by no means am I an expert on this. I realize that not all students are going to be computer programmers, but you never know who’s going to be. So I always want to expose kids to a lot of different things in general when it comes to my STEM class. So this is a really great time to do that. 

Naomi Meredith  19:23

Me personally, I do robotics as a whole separate unit. I don’t really do a whole lot of robotics during my Hour of Code unit because I want to dive deeper when it comes to robotics. So for me, I like to start with Hour of Code. I do typically teach this around December or January. Then my unit immediately after is my separate robotics unit. That way, students have a background when it comes to different coding languages. Then they can really play around with those languages when it comes to the robots that we’re using and see the output of what the robot’s task is going to be. That is a personal preference. But what has worked well in my STEM classroom, it’s definitely up to you. I know people also like to implement robots in their Hour of Code. So do what works best for you and the time that you have with the kids. As I said, in this Hour of Code unit, I don’t create a whole lot for it because there are so many great things out there. This even includes a ton of video resources that I love to show my students when it comes to computer science and coding, BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr have a lot of great videos. They have added a lot more over the years. When it comes to learning about computational thinking, different ways to code, such as looping, or even parts of a computer and coding in general, definitely check those out. 

Naomi Meredith  20:44

In the free guide, I even break up which videos I like to use with each grade level so you’re not always repeating the same ones. You also know that I am a huge fan of SciShow Kids, which I talked about back in episode 17, where it’s all of those different resources I like to use for imagining. SciShow Kids also has some great videos when it comes to teaching about robots and the parts of a computer. If you want to dive in even deeper when it comes to coding, some of you might even be a technology teacher and not necessarily STEM. Code.org, separate from Hour of Code, has more extensive materials, actual units, and a progression of learning when it comes to coding in your classroom. This is also great to look into if you’re thinking about a different after-school opportunity. You don’t need to go and create anything because there are so many things on there that you can just plug and play, especially for those kids who really are getting obsessed with coding. Again, another great after-school activity with very minimal prep. One of my favorites for after-school activities is the Google CS first curriculum. There is a whole theme and a different challenge that they have to create. They’re always improving this curriculum and really making it self-guided, and kids can access the information at home. So definitely recommend checking out that resource. 

Naomi Meredith  22:03

As a recap, there is so much to do for Hour of code, but it is such a fun unit to implement. It should be your least stressful unit out of your entire year because most of it’s already done for you. You just have to go in, explore and check out the free guide that I have for you because that’s going to help you really wrap your head around all the different things that you can do during this time. We first talked about navigating that Hour of Code resource. So definitely play around with those filters that can help you with your experience. Then we talked about how you can have a mixture of device-based coding and coding unplugged or unplugged coding. Then also think about structuring your time if you want to do station rotations, a whole group exploring, or a mixture of both. Then really utilize those extra resources out there, especially when it comes to videos, where you can see coding that is relevant in their real lives. Again, make sure to check out the Hour of Code freebie that I have created for you to help you organize your time with your students. This will be linked in the show notes, and you can also grab it at Naomimeredith.com/tpthourofcode.