Month: December 2018

Itchy Bytes: Scratch Starters!

www.rundontwalk.co.uk

My new “Delve in, for twelve min!” video features three new Scratch projects (Which you can download for free from TES here: Itchy Bytes: Quick Starters, Lessons, Plenaries in coding), designed as starters, plenaries, or you could even stretch them out into a full lesson. 

As the Autumn term draws to an end, I’ve found these particularly helpful when pupils need a short activity (you know, for when you’re waiting to be called to the hall for their part in the Christmas Production??). Each project reinforces the concepts of sequence, selection and repetition, whilst encouraging them to thing logically and predict/test what each block of code does. AND they’re really fun.

Watch the video for a demonstration…

Give them a try, let me know how you get on!


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Crumble Creations Continued…

primary Computing

SO! The first of the current Year 6 primary computing projects is complete…

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you the Silent Alarm Scanner Bot (name to be confirmed…). As you can see, this is a plain and simple little robot that has been packed with 2 LEDs, a distance sensor, a motor and of course a Crumble micro-controller.

However, what it lacks in paint and decoration, it makes up for in functionality; this little bot slowly rotates, scanning the immediate environment. When its sensor detects something nearby, it stops rotating and ‘points’ straight at the object, while flashing it’s blue and red lights.

Simple, yet very effective. Designed, built and programmed by two eleven year olds. Remarkable!

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Childhood Anxiety – Tech Resources

As a parent and a teacher, I really value opportunities to talk about mental health and wellbeing with children. Most of the time, just having the conversation does a wealth of good; letting kids know it’s OK to talk about it and OK to feel different. However, there are going to be times when you need to be a little bit more equipped…

This Parent’s Guide to Childhood Anxiety – featured on Tutorful  contains lots of good advice (including resources from the Children’s Society) which seems to me to be very grounded and down to earth (not trying to make something out of nothing), and genuinely aimed at helping parents feel confident to talk their children through anxious times.

Obviously because of my primary computing angle, I’m particularly interested in the resources section titled – Anxiety Relief Tools. Here you can find a compilation of great apps and books designed to help by providing calming distraction techniques, promoting exercise, or simply starting conversations.

Take some time to browse through some of these as a teacher or parent; see if any jump out at you with particular children in mind. I can already think of a few I’m going to introduce…

Let’s keep our youngsters’ minds happy and healthy.

Go to: Anxiety Relief Tools

Anxiety Relief Apps Primary Computing

 

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