What an amazing day working with the Year 2 children from Acklam Whin Primary School in Middlesbrough with our KS1 Robot Coding session.
Over the course of the session, the children learned all about what is code and why coding is important in our world today. We also looked at different job opportunities in our local area linked with coding and programming and we were amazed at the opportunities right on our doorstep. We even had time for an unplugged activity following an algorithm written in emoji code!
After this, we worked with our robot friends learning the basics of block coding in order to communicate with them. Using our knowledge of position and direction we worked out which way to turn our robots to navigate them to a specific coordinate on the floor grids to complete a set of coding challenges. We even incorporated our times table knowledge working out how many squares to move forwards and converting that into cm.
The fun didn’t stop there! Linking our geographical knowledge of the local area, on our floor maps we coded our robots to take a ‘Tour of the Tees Valley’ starting at our school in Middlesbrough and visiting other parts of the Tees Valley including Darlington, Hartlepool, Redcar & Cleveland and Stockton.
Throughout the session the Year 2s worked with a team of KS2 Digital Leaders that represented their school phenomenally and were exemplary role models and provided support for the younger children when needed in a gentle and caring way.
Engagement and excitement levels were off the scale and the children couldn’t wait to tell their families at hometime what had happened in school today.
What an unbelievable day with some coders of the future!
