Doing the Unthinkable - Coding in 4th Grade

A lot of the time a good idea just needs to be seen and imagined for it to become reality.  This project was created by Melanie Sylvester, for her kids to experiment with.  Melanie came up with this amazing idea about having her 4th grade students, from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, code in a program called scratch. 

• This program enables children to create interactive stories, games, and animation.  
• See the below video for some of the awesome things that can be created with scratch:

Melanie was able to use her network on twitter to find out more information on coding to create an amazing idea for the grade 4 unit it electricity and magnetism.  Melanie started by trying coding out on her 9 year old son Cade.  Once she was satisfied that the project could be done and would be of interest to kids, she moved her idea to the classroom.  She stared with a few stand alone lessons in coding with scratch.  Lessons were taken from the scratch curriculum guide and then students looked at different project that were already created.  Students then walked through the tutorial and excitement and collaboration exploded in the room. 

After several stand alone lesson with success, the class was ready to integrate.  This is when Melanie again reached out to her twitter network for ideas.  Someone suggested to her that she should use a Makey Makey.

• A Makey Makey is an easy-to-use invention kit that turns everyday object into touch pads. 
• See the following video for some applications of the Makey Makey.

The student were introduced to the use of the Makey Makey.  Once they got the hang of it, the moved on to use the Makey Makey to test items for conductivity.  Each group of children then, created a final project.  The children were required to record their final.   One groups final project of a cucumber race is seen in the video.  The instructor asks the children to explain what they knew about the topic.  It is seen from the video that a vast amount of learning took place in this 4th grade class.

This shows a few different important things.  One, it is vital to use today's technology to reach out and learn.  Without Melanie's use of twitter, she may never have started using Scratch or the Makey Makey.  Also, this goes to show how one great idea can expand into something amazing and learning filled.  I hope to create something like this with my students!

Reference List:

Makey Makey:
https://makeymakey.com/pages/about-us#

Scratch:
https://scratch.mit.edu/about

Coetail Course 5 Final: Creating and Coding:
https://melsylvester.coetail.com/2015/04/14/course-5-final-project-creating-and-coding/