Imagination Foundation

CHS Short Stacks | They're short for a reason! 5 Year Olds Coding Without Technology Melissa Dann () is a prep teacher in Melbourne Australia who has begun exploring the concepts of coding with her five year old students. Yesterday she sent me the email below. As she reflects on her own practice, I applaud her confidence in considering a blog post – way to take a risk! As such, I asked if I could quote her here in this space to get comfortable. Hi Brian, Here is a quick overview of what been happening in my classroom teaching coding to 5 year olds. Game : Robots and Programmers Children work in pairs. Language development is an important part of the activity. I kept it to a maximum of 10 steps as the children were keen to ask their robot to take 100 or even 1000 steps however we realised (by counting how many steps it took to cross the room) that 10 was about right amount for the size of our room. After playing this game the first time, it became apparent that we needed a way to decide how far a turn was, eg ¼ turn, ½ turn. Thanks for your encouragement and support.