11 Jan 09 Teaching kids the basics of programming using physical props

A few years back I was asked to lead a “problem solving” session once a week for my first grader’s class. With my education and employment in engineering, I felt that this was a natural fit for me, so I agreed and started 2 days later.

For two 45 minute sessions, I would “entertain” two different groups of kids (about 8 of them each) – divided by gender and picked from the class based on some criteria I was not privy to. I was given guides and a problem to solve (based on some curriculum I can’t recall). The goal of each session was to encourage group cooperation to reach a solution to the problem presented.
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Tags: Lego, Mindstorms, Programming, Robot, Scratch