This afternoon the Robotics 2 camp finished up with a dance a party. Literally.
Ha! That makes me laugh because my 9 year old uses "literally" ALL. THE. TIME. and incorrectly, of course. Anyway, we jumped right into our challenge of using all 4 maneuvers we've already learned within one map: drive forward, turn, follow a line, and stop at a black line. I shared one map from Wednesday that was the closest I've seen yet for this assignment and with a little bit of talking through why it wouldn't work quite right we had all three teams successfully complete the challenge. They were the first teams ever to complete this challenge (since I've been teaching it) and they all got there! I LOVE how everyone worked together to help troubleshoot maps and programs. It was also interesting how they all coded the program different even though their maps were very similar.
Then we got to the business of dancing - well, making Edison dance. This is where Robotics 2 takes a turn for the more creative side of coding. Instead of following a preset code students were encouraged to create their own code to dance Edison around the floor. One group of students even made a production of three Edison bots on a stage (previously made in Makerspace). All set to the song "Everything is Awesome" from the LEGO movie.
This class was amazing to work with this week. I learned a bunch of new things from them and I know they learned a bunch this week as well! Have a fantastic time playing with your Edison robots and hopefully I'll see you again this summer!
What a fun adventure in storytelling and fairy tales we had this week! We explored ways to make vibrant, innovative, powerful, and intriguing stories. We looked for examples of crazy pairings in mentor texts and tried to add our own crazy twists into our stories. By adding an unexpected element writers can catch the attention of the reader.
We used a variety of strategies today to get our writing from our rough draft into our hard cover books. We counted how many pages were in the final copy of split up the rough draft copy into the right number of pages. Some students were able to work through this process on their own. Others needed varied levels of help from me. We had a couple of students who used fun conventions ideas from the mentor texts we studied. Some students added bold words or larger text in certain places. Others had a page that only had one or two words on it to build suspense.
Illustrations had starting points from how to draw books and mentor texts. The students really took the illustrations from that point and made them their own.
We finished the camp by sharing our stories with the group. There was so much giggling! Be sure to watch our video!
I ended the day with a writing standards quick assessment for each kid. It's a simple form that breaks down the writing standards for Kindergarten through 4th grade. I am able to make some quick notes about what I saw in our writing camp to share with parents the strengths of their child as well as what skills they need more practice in.
Want to get in on the fun? The summer session of Writing Workshop is only 1 afternoon and is almost full! Be sure to register right away! https://fs27.formsite.com/H6BLFr/form4/index.html
I LOVE day 2 of Makerspace camp! We have just enough information under our belts to start REALLY exploring and challenging our maker selves. We dove right in to partially completed projects and brand new projects all over the room. The kids were AMAZING at helping each other by teaching what they knew and troubleshooting together. By the end of the day we even had two "shops" complete with signs that invited other kids to come to them for help.
Today there were many items using simple DC motors and many more air powered items. I was really impressed with the creativity of building a "drill" and took the opportunity to teach about switches in order to conveniently turn on and off a machine. Up to this point we've only used alligator clips and simply disconnected our wiring manually to turn things off. Makerspace is absolutely amazing for this type of real life, applicable to the moment teaching. A number of kids gathered around naturally while I started explaining how the switch works and how we wire it into our circuit. Just a short while later switches were showing up in many creations.
In Makerspace we fail. A lot. Wires break off their soldier spots, balloons pop, gears don't line up well enough to work together under power, and yet we keep trying. Sometimes an idea is abandoned and left to the trash can or to be scavenged for parts later. Sometimes it just takes talking to the right person to brainstorm a new way to approach the problem.
We now have an army of crafters. Today I also brought out the colored masking tape - a crafter's paradise.
The megaphone announcements may have been a bit much for my ears but all the creators followed my instructions to set them away until parents came - sorry parents, hopefully not many of them made it home...
Overall, Makerspace was a smashing success. Within the two day camp we saw collaboration, exploration, creative thinking, and authentic problem solving. We saw students become masters and share their knowledge with others. We saw students engaging in creative projects and stretching beyond their comfort zones. In Makerspace we value creativity. Want to join us for the summer session? Though titled the same thing each session is completely different. This summer we'll be adding LED lights to our circuits using both paper circuits on origami and wired circuits for the ever popular cardboard creations. Join us!
Writing Workshop this morning was off to a great start! We read a few of my absolute favorite mentor texts, talked about storytelling and writing generas, explored fun conventions such as the ellipsis (...) text size/location and color, and explored different illustration options.
Our focus for writing workshop is on fiction writing and telling stories. We talked about he main elements in a piece of fiction (characters, setting, problem, solution) and dissected the mentor texts as we read them aloud. We listened to The Goldfish by the Laurie Berkner Band and talked about how it is also a story, just in song form. The giggles were quite intense at this point in our discussion which led quite easily into what kind of stories we like to listen to and read - stories that make us feel an emotion, like happiness! We also played a fun game from "Tell Me a Story" where we rolled story cubes and had to fill in the blanks for a few story starters. There was so much imagination flying around the room and everyone developed fantastic ideas for their own fiction writing.
Students then got to work putting their ideas down on paper in their sloppy copy or rough draft. We worked out the kinks together and practiced some of our illustrations. Due to time constraints we aren't making a complete rough draft before starting our hardback books tomorrow, just getting our ideas down on paper and playing around with different elements so there is less correcting in our nice versions. The kids were SO excited about writing that they asked to take home their sloppy copy to work on it before tomorrow morning, and the kids who stayed during the lunch hour continued working on it then as well!
Are you interested in joining us for a one day only summer version of this camp? We'd love to have you!
The kids in Robotics 2 brought some amazing passion and energy to camp today! I am incredibly impressed with what we were able to accomplish. They were able to recall the parts of a robot with the correct vocabulary and they were able to transition into a more independent situation where students didn't need me to remind them step-by-step how to program the Edison Robots. This led to a fantastic situation for any classroom - Individualized Learning. The kids who where working on mastering the decimal form of a percentage of a second were coached through that. Students who mastered the math quickly were able to move on and challenge themselves by adding more complicated code and programming their robots to interact with each other.
Let me back up just a tad. We started off the day reviewing computational thinking - the process of doing one step at a time. We created our first basic maze in life-size fashion on the floor, wrote the code for it, then took turns calling out the code to the person pretending to be the robot. Even the baby got in on it before going down for a nap - boy did the kids think that was a riot! Then students worked on coding Edison to follow the same, though much smaller, maze. Once they mastered the given maze they were instructed to draw their own and code Edison to complete it - not many completed this challenge so keep it in mind for a rainy day at home!
Then we learned how Edison can interact with drawn lines. Edison has a line tracking sensor and can follow a black line or respond to a black line. We learned a few more coding blocks such as "Speed" and "Turn OFF the Motors" all while playing with following our own drawn trails - a simple black marker and large sheet of paper does the trick! These are all activities that can me built upon at home after camp ends. We spent some time today talking about how coding robots is a fairly complicated task and we will hardly ever get the math right on the first try. After each task we sat as a group on the sofa and reflected on what went well and not so well and why we thought that. We also brainstormed different ideas to troubleshoot problems such as accidentally poking holes in the paper that then cause Edison to get stuck! I am continually impressed with the enthusiasm and perseverance that is shown by kids in robotics camps - something about robots helps us be a little more brave to try, fail, and try again. Keep up the great work!
Wow! These kids are super creative! We started off our Makerspace camp today talking about the way things work and how we can can put things together to make amazing toys and machines. The kids who hadn't yet had an opportunity to take apart an Edison robot started with that project. We dissected an Edison robot with a hope to fix it (it was previously broken from a different class). I haven't had the chance to check and see if we fixed the motor problem, but we did get a good look around at the inside of Edison. We compared balanced and unbalanced motors and how much they vibrate. Then we all got to work building our own amazing creations.
As students become makers they go through a stage of observation and mimicry. It was fascinating to observe which children were ready to forge out into the world of creating an unknown versus watching another maker and trying to recreate what you've watched. As an adult I do a fair amount of watching others and mimicking them - it's a fantastic way to learn!
We had a couple fans (by the way - they hurt! and some adjustments needed to be made so they didn't accidentally wack your face!), a couple of air powered cars, some balloon creations, and some serious failures. Did you see my post a while back about failing? I believe that failing is one of the most important gifts we can give our children and students, but only if then coupled with a reflection of why there was failure and brainstorming about how to correct the failure. We are stronger when we fail, reflect, and try again.
Anyway, off my soap box now.... We started exploring with axles, gears, and motors today but haven't yet been successful. I look forward to working with these kids again as we try to iron out the details and stretch our brains!
Spring Break Robotics 1 was so full of energy this morning. I love how they learned enough from day 1 to be able to jump right in to playing and exploring on day 2.One of the hardest parts of learning to use Edison is simply remembering which buttons to push and when in order to control him. I was impressed with this group of kids coming right back into it and helping each other remember how to scan the program barcodes and make it play.
Day 2 of Robotics 1 reviews the three main parts of a robot (computer, sensors, actuators) and compares robots to remote controlled toys. We had such a fun discussion about if certain machines were robots or just machines. The most lively discussion was about if phones are robots or not. Even adults can't agree on that one (smart phones do technically have all three components of robots). During this discussion one of the 7 year old boys said, "I've been studying this stuff for years now." It was a good chuckle.
After discussing robots versus remote controlled toys and machines we moved into programming more with Edison. We programmed him to follow a light and to drive on a black line. We broke into teams and created maps for Edison to drive on. The kids worked so cooperatively on this project and the three completely different ideas for maps amazed me: a farm/city, a science house, and Egypt.
At the end of the day we learned to have Edison bounce within drawn borders and then sumo wrestle another robot. To wrap up our camp we completed our KWL page that we started on day one and wrote down all the things we learned. We had an absolute blast learning and exploring robots together. Every student took their robot home at the end of the day along with their workbook of barcodes. I've already heard back from families that were amazed how much their child came home and talked their ears off about robots!
Thank you to this wonderful class for coming and playing with us!
A fantastic group of kids showed up for Robotics 2 Spring Break camp this afternoon. They brought so much knowledge and excitement about robots that at the end of our time today they weren't ready to go home! Everyone drew a robot on the front of their workbook today and we took turns sharing what we drew. We talked about the three parts of a robot (computer, sensors, actuators) and how there are many machines out there that aren't robots because they're missing one of the three main parts.
This class was assigned to find all the parts of their Edison Robot before we went over them as a class. This turned out to be a super fun exploration stage as some kids found the on/off switch and others weren't certain if they were allowed to turn it on and when they found out it was ok they were amazed at all the things Edison did right away.
We spent a big chunk of time talking about what decimals (to the hundredth place) meant. We first talked in terms of $1.00. If I took away a dime or $0.10 how much would I have left? Repeat until you get to zero. Then we started over with $1.00 and talked about what if I only took away a penny or $0.01? Repeat until you get to zero. We then tried to bridge the gap between money and time. We wanted 1.00 to be one second and any smaller decimal to represent a part of a second. This is a really important concept to understand as we start programming our robots. With the Edison bot we have to tell it how long to move in terms of seconds and since seconds are so long we have to use parts of seconds quite often.
Computational Thinking is the ability to think in a series of tasks, or a list, that is completed in order. We used the example of washing our hands: Close your eyes and imagine that you are going to wash your hands. You walk into the bathroom and turn off the water. You then dry your hands. Next you turn on the water and scrub your hands. Lastly, you scrub soap all over your hands and dry them on a towel. In the end, did you end up with clean hands and the faucet turned off? Doing things in the wrong order can really mess you up. The same is true for a robot. They have to do one step at a time. When we bake a cake we follow a recipe or cookbook. It's a list of instructions that we follow to be successful. We did our first coding challenge of drawing in the code for a series of instructions in the right order.
Once we had covered our basics it was time to tackle coding Edison with our computers and tablets. Edison is wonderful because we can use a web based coding software that doesn't require any downloads and loads the code to Edison through the headphone jack. Our first computer assignment was to load a code onto Edison. The code was pre-written so that we could just follow the process of how to load a code onto Edison.
There was an amount of troubleshooting the robots and connections and everyone was so fascinated with the code where Edison would follow a light source that we got carried away playing!
We spent just a little time at the very end of the class working on writing our own code to move Edison forward and to make him turn. Calling it quits for the day was extremely difficult since we were on such a roll! I can't wait for our next time together where we can really get into activities where we write out own code.
A peek inside our camp classroom:
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Robotics 2 is a first physical item coding class for students 7-10 years old. Students learn the parts of a robot and use a drag and drop programming language called EdBlocks to program their robot to complete different tasks. Interested in joining us for Robotics 2 Summer Camp?
WOW! We had so much fun this morning at our first day of Robotics camp. It is so fun to be the teacher of such an exciting and engaging class with kids that are practically jumping out of their skin with excitement to be learning and exploring.
We started off our camp talking about what robots are. Each person drew and potentially wrote about their own creative robot ideas. We filled out a few lines about what we already knew about robots and what we'd like to learn about robots. Then we shared our work with each other. I love the sharing part because we're able to welcome each class member by name and listen to their ideas. This builds community quickly in a camp, which is super important!
When each child received their own robot their "oohs" and "awes" were so energizing! They couldn't wait to get started but first we needed a little snack and recess.
Robotics 1 is amazing because it makes robotics completely accessible to all ages. I love how the Edison Robots can start at this basic level of reading barcodes to run programs and develop through drag and drop programming languages and into Python (an industry standard today). Our first barcode programs for Edison included clap controlled driving and avoiding obstacles.
The giggles and excitement throughout the day were so contagious! We had so much fun learning and exploring together! I can't wait to see these guys again and show them more cool tricks that they can do with their robots.
A peek inside our camp classroom (*please note that every time the sound is cut out of the video it's done on purpose to protect student identity)
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Robotics Level 1 is a starting place for students with little or no experience with robotics. Students learn what a robot is and how it is different from remote controlled toys. Students explore different programs that let them manipulate their own robot. No coding is required of the students at this level. Interested in joining us for Summer Camp Robotics 1?
This week, I let a young child fail for the first time at coding. I did this on purpose. By letting her fail (she put in too many forward codes on the Code and Go Mouse and it fell off the table) I'm teaching her that #1: we don't always get things right the first time, and #2: we have to think about what went wrong (reflect) and make a change for the next attempt as we try to be successful as we try again. This is a scaffolded approach to teaching, where the teacher starts to step away as the child tries more on their own. Instilling this growth mindset helps them not only have more grit for future challenges, but also to recognize the IMPORTANCE of REFLECTION. So, your tidbit for today - trying hard THE WRONG WAY will never get you to success. REFLECTING on WHY it was the wrong way and MAKING A CHANGE will. Go forth and reflect...
Our toddler program is in full swing and boy are we having a blast! If you happen to have a toddler at home I've created an extensive curriculum that gives you purposeful play to do with your little one. You can follow along with our weekly adventures on the LittleAdventuresPreschool blog and you can pick up your own copy of the curriculum here.
It's a Pi Day Sale! For the next 3.14 days you can get $33.14 off of a Spring Break Robotics Level 2 Camp or Spring Break Writing Workshop Camp. Register today!
This summer we'll have a chance to build our robotics knowledge by leaps and bounds. Introducing Robotics 4 - the chance to build your Edison bot into something spectacular.
EdCrane: 1 of 5 builds your child will complete at camp.
