This week, students were engaged in the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice as they try to find solutions to Ozobot and Dash & Dot challenges. The standards included MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them, MP5: Use appropriate tools strategically, and MP7: Look for and make use of structure.

Grades 3-5 Ozobot challenge: Help Ozobot find the way to the shop across the river. Ozobot must safely move from the house to the shop using codes to guide its way. During this challenge, students learned how Ozobot senses its environment and moves in it. They also learn how to give commands to Ozobot via Ozocodes, which is the color code language that Ozobot understands.

K-2 Dash and Dot challenge: Very similar to the Ozobot challenge, but in this challenge Dash needs to maneuver its way through a maze to rescue Dot from a deserted island.  Students use drag and drop block coding to give commands to Dash to find its way to Dot.

This week I decided to break out Dash & Dot and Ozobots for all students and not limit the robots to just my coding and robotics club. K-5 students had a ball!!! I just wanted them to familiarize themselves with the robots this week and have fun because next week I’m bringing on the challenges 🙂 K-2 students used an app called Path to drive Dash around on different paths made of geometric figures while adding sound effects. 3-5 students experimented with Ozobots using drag and drop coding, practiced calibration, and wrote programs for Ozobot to perform. Needless to say, my students had a ball! See videos and pics below:

Students are getting the hang of coding robots and having fun. We’re not experts, but through our trials, errors, and failures we WILL succeed!!!

For the next few weeks students will be focusing on computer science skills and honing their skills on looping and pair programming. Looping is the action of doing something over and over again and pair programming is students working together at one workstation. With pair programming, one student is the driver who writes the code while the other student, the observer or navigator, reviews each line of code as it is typed in. The two programmers switch roles  frequently.

Greetings Parents!

Please choose Option 1 for your child’s access to Office 365 so that they can access Cobb County’s new wifi, COSIGNO. Access to the internet will be needed as we begin to work with robots such as Dash and Dot, Sphero, Ozobots, and coding gaming systems such as Osmo. Please watch the video for parental consent instructions or copy and paste the link below:

http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice/InstructionalTechnology/CR/Office365/o365Student.aspx

This week, I decided to implement the 4C’S (critical thinking skills, creativity, collaboration, and communication) as students were challenged to complete a challenging maze by coding a robotic mouse to get to its special treat, cheese. The mazes were intricate and students quickly found out how difficult it was to apply critical thinking skills and creativity without collaboration and communication with their peers. Successful groups all had one thing in common, working together with minimal arguments get the job done!

This week was a fun-filled week as 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students built catapults to learn how a simple machine like a lever can make work easier and also to understand the difference between potential energy and kinetic energy while operating the catapults.  Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade students were jamming to a groovy beat while learning about gravity. The students also made paper flyers to prove how gravity is responsible for holding everything down and we went outside to have a paper flyer contest to see who can defy gravity the longest and land the farthest distance by flying their paper flyer.

Lesson Objective: 

K-2 Students will build paper flyers and observe and communicate effects of gravity on objects and recognize that some things, such as airplanes and birds, are in the sky, but return to earth.

3-5 Students will build and operate catapults to identify sources of energy such as potential energy and kinetic energy and how the energy is used. Students will also identify how a lever, a simple machine, is used as a basic mechanical device for applying a force and making work easier by operating the catapult.

Our first coding and robotics club is also off to great start as students are using critical thinking skills and reasoning to complete coding tasks. Check out the pics and videos below. 

We had so much fun this week! Students in grades 3-5 worked with chemicals (permanent dye) to experience chemical changes versus physical changes. We used tools such as a wooden skewer, barbecue brush and scrapers to manipulate shaving cream and dye into a beautiful designs.

Science behind dyes: The dyes are fiber-reactive, which means a chemical reaction takes place between the dye and fabric molecules. The dye bonds with the cotton and becomes part of the fabric. That is why the dyes are so permant and vibrant even after several washing.

K-2 students engineered their own butterflies using baby wipes, markers, rubber bands, pipe cleaners, wiggle eyes, and clothespins. Then as scientists do, students classified the butterflies into groups based on their physical features.

This week we continued with sequencing. Students used their computer science coding skills to create various algorithms that will complete geometric figures. This challenging task required students to identify angles, degree of angles, adding and subtracting. K-2 students also coded using symbols instead of words as they tried to maneuver the angry bird through a maze to get to the pig. Although some students did not get as far in the game as they would have liked, during our reflection time students express it was difficult, but they had fun and never gave up during the process. My K-5 HLES students ROCK!