A fun and interactive lesson for kids to learn the basics of coding.
How many of you have played a video game, used Facebook, or have a cell phone? If you look around, it isn't hard to find technology everywhere. Technology can help us do important things, no matter what you want to be when you grow up!
Doctors, police officers, teachers, and even athletes depend on technology to do their job better.
When you write code, you are telling the computer what to do. The code you write is called software. Technology, like your cell phone or XBox, relies on software to work. When your video game is running, it is actually software at work, listening to your controller and displaying the video on your TV. When you open Facebook, its software that is displaying the website, looking up your friends, and notifying you when you have a message!
Learning to code is valuable and fun!
- Its valuable because you learn a new skill that can help you do lots of amazing things!
- Its fun because writing code is challenging and rewarding!
- It will give you many opportunities!
- Open this link in your browser - Let's build a Star Wars game!
- Let's do Lesson 1 together. Visualize the problem. What do we want BB8 to do? Use your finger. Try Lesson 2 and 3 on your own, then stop!
- Let's do Lesson 4 together. Break the problem down into pieces. How many sections do you see? Try lesson 5 on your own, then stop!
- Let's do Lesson 6 together. Solve one piece at a time, then click reset! Don't solve the whole problem at once - it will get too difficult. This rule is the most important of them all. You can run your program as many times as you like.
- Build a Star Wars Game! Try doing lessons 7 through 9 on your own, then stop. If you see a friend struggling, try helping them out.
- Let's do Lesson 10 together. Read the directions - Add 100 points for a rebel pilot, but remove 100 points for a storm trooper. 200 points to win the game.
- Do the rest of the lessons on your own!
Remember the 3 keys to good programming -
- Visualize your problem.
- Break the problem down into pieces.
- Solve one piece at a time!
There are many other resources to learn how to code.