Teachers and pupils alike love a themed lesson so I’ve created a new activity for Halloween computing that teaches basic HTML/CSS for pupils aged 9-11.
Each term, I create free themed computing lessons and I’ve written another step-by-step lesson plan and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using in my computing classes and have added to iCompute’s primary computing schemes of work. This activity has been adapted from a cross-curricular computing lesson in iCompute Across the Curriculum.
Halloween is approaching and you’re having a party! Using basic HTML and CSS your pupils will create an invitation to their party in the form of a web page. In this activity children learn how HTML formats web content and CSS styles it using age-appropriate syntax and tools.
Includes HTML tutorial
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Plus HTML Mozilla Thimble tutorial for teacher and pupil support. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative!
Help your pupils get dead good at problem solving using key computational thinking skills such as abstraction, decomposition, generalisation and pattern spotting with our free Halloween themed puzzles.
Computational thinking lies at the heart of the National Curriculum for Computing and our best selling (Educational Resources Awards nominated) series of Computational Thinking Puzzle books 1-4 help pupils independently practice the skills they learn in their computing lessons.
Grab yourself a treat with our free puzzles for Halloween. Visit www.icompute-uk.com for more free themed lesson plans and resources to support teaching primary computing.
Play and code this Valentines day with our free coding activity: a romantic themed Cupid game for pupils aged 7-11 using Scratch.
Throughout the year, I create free themed computing lessons, and I’ve written another step-by-step lesson plan and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using in my computing classes and am adding to iCompute to celebrate Valentines Day.
Love is in the air but Cupid needs a little help aiming his arrow! Challenge your pupils to program Cupid’s bow to respond to user input and aim to catch the heart of a love interest.
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Plus program templates and partially-written programs for teacher and pupil support. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative!
Here’s at iCompute Headquarters there’s nothing we like more than creating Christmas themed resources. I’ve been having a great time designing and developing new lesson plans, tutorials and programs for this year’s festive season.
My latest offering is an absolute Christmas cracker! A coding tutorial for Microsoft Kodu. Kodu is helping Santa deliver presents on Christmas Eve but needs your pupil’s help coding him to deliver the presents to the right houses. I’ve made a Kodu tutorial for your pupils to use that will guide them through the coding process before letting them get on with completing the activity and then having some festive fun by making it their own.
Get the lesson plan & tutorial
Another free Christmas computing resource helps your pupils get jolly good at problem solving using key computational thinking skills such as abstraction, decomposition, generalisation and pattern spotting.
Computational thinking lies at the heart of the National Curriculum for Computing and our best selling (ERA and BETT nominated) schemes of work support schools teach it creatively and well.
Grab yourself a gift with our free stuff for Christmas. Visit www.icompute-uk.com for more free Christmas themed lesson plans and resources to support teaching primary computing.
Regular readers will know that I’ve previously created a 6 week coding unit for pupils aged 9-11 using BitsBox. Bitsbox uses a simplified version of Javascript, and provides tools that enable pupils to develop their own apps.
It’s a great stepping stone from the blocks-based languages and environments your pupils may have already mastered (E.g. Scratch, App Inventor, Tynker etc) on to text-based languages.
PRIMM
I’ve been researching pedagogies to support computing mastery and PRIMM is a programming pedagogy developed by Dr Sue Sentence and the Computing Education team at Kings College London based on the notion that its difficult to become successful at writing code if you cannot read it.
I have created a Christmas themed step-by-step lesson plan that uses Bitsbox and I’m using the PRIMM approach for teaching programming.
Predict | Run | Investigate | Modify | Make
PRIMM stands for Predict | Run | Investigate | Modify | Make. The approach enables teachers to support pupils by giving them some code that they first understand and then build upon towards making their own.
It’s a great way to structure a lesson and think it’ll make a real difference to those pupils who have difficulty understanding some programming concepts.
Feel free to download this lesson and try PRIMM in your own classroom.
Use the PRIMM programming approach to develop a program from a Christmas gift catching game into a new game
Challenge your pupils to design algorithms and program the game using a text-based programming language, variables and functions.
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As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see support resource which is included in the pack) and/or write a more simple version. Your more able pupils could:
change the speed, direction and size falling presents
make the game multi-player and multi-level
complete the game to a time
create Game Over functions
create sound tracks and jingles for the app
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative.
Everyone likes putting a seasonal twist on lessons during the approach to Easter and I’ve been making Easter computing lessons for my pupils to add to iCompute‘s computing scheme of work
This time, I’ve put together a step-by-step computing lesson plan and teacher resources for Key Stage 1 pupils. You can download the free Easter computing lesson and resources and use them your own classrooms for a little seasonal fun!
A spin on the Bee Bot app, this uses Scratch 2.0 and ‘BunnyBot’. The children create algorithms and program the Easter Bunny to collect Eggs.
BunnyBot
Click to download lesson & resources
The lesson plan contains lots of ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment
Not long until Easter and I’m sure you’ll have lots planned for it in other subjects, but don’t forget about Computing. It’s a great end-of-term opportunity for your pupils to demonstrate what they can do with Scratch programming.
Click to download the plan and resources
I’ve prepared a step-by-step lesson plan and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using and have added to iCompute to celebrate Easter and/or Spring. Feel free to download and use in your own classroom.
It’s Easter and the Easter Bunny has forgotten where she has hidden all of her eggs. Challenge your pupils to create algorithms and program the bunny to get all of her eggs in her basket any way they know.
Pupil Support Card
As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see Egg Hunt card which is included in the pack) and/or write a more simple collecting less eggs. Your more able pupils could:
program the ice-cream truck sprite to move across the x-axis
program the hot-air balloon to fly
add the Easter eggs to a list variable when collected
add ‘enemies’ to thwart the Easter Bunny in her quest
add extra, increasingly difficult, levels (e.g. mazes to navigate)
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative.
Not long until Easter and I’m sure you’ll have lots planned for it in other subjects, but don’t forget about Computing. It’s a great end-of-term opportunity for your pupils to demonstrate what they can do with Scratch programming.
Click to download the plan and resources
I’ve prepared a step-by-step lesson plan and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using and have added to iCompute to celebrate Easter and/or Spring. Feel free to download and use in your own classroom.
It’s Easter and the Easter Bunny has forgotten where she has hidden all of her eggs. Challenge your pupils to create algorithms and program the bunny to get all of her eggs in her basket any way they know.
Pupil Support Card
As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see Egg Hunt card which is included in the pack) and/or write a more simple collecting less eggs. Your more able pupils could:
program the ice-cream truck sprite to move across the x-axis
program the hot-air balloon to fly
add the Easter eggs to a list variable when collected
add ‘enemies’ to thwart the Easter Bunny in her quest
add extra, increasingly difficult, levels (e.g. mazes to navigate)
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative.
Everyone likes putting a seasonal twist on lessons during the approach to Easter and I’ve been making Easter computing lessons for my pupils to add to iCompute‘s computing scheme of work
This time, I’ve put together a step-by-step computing lesson plan and teacher resources for Key Stage 1 pupils. You can download the free Easter computing lesson and resources and use them your own classrooms for a little seasonal fun!
A spin on the Bee Bot app, this uses Scratch 2.0 and ‘BunnyBot’. The children create algorithms and program the Easter Bunny to collect Eggs.
BunnyBot
Click to download lesson & resources
The lesson plan contains lots of ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment
Easter is just around the corner and I’ve been busy creating more themed computing activities so that your pupils can demonstrate their computational thinking and coding skills.
Click to get the plan and resources
I’ve prepared step-by-step lesson plans and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using and have added to iCompute to celebrate Easter and/or Spring.
It’s Easter and the Easter Bunny has forgotten where she has hidden all of her eggs. Challenge your pupils to create algorithms and program the bunny to get all of her eggs in her basket any way they know.
Pupil Support Card
As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see Egg Hunt card which is included in the pack) and/or write a more simple collecting less eggs. Your more able pupils could:
program the ice-cream truck sprite to move across the x-axis
program the hot-air balloon to fly
add the Easter eggs to a list variable when collected
add ‘enemies’ to thwart the Easter Bunny in her quest
add extra, increasingly difficult, levels (e.g. mazes to navigate)
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative.
I’ve also created an Easter Egg Hiding Robotics activity using Sphero SPRK+ and Sphero Edu. The Easter Bunny (Sphero) needs your help programming it to hide a collection of Easter Eggs (hollow plastic balls or eggs filled with treats). Lots of cross curricular links here with Science and Mathematics so get rolling.
Everyone likes putting a festive twist on lessons during the approach to Christmas and I’ve been making festive computing lessons for my pupils.
I’ve recently produced a six week animation unit for Key Stage 2 (iAnimate) where the children learn about the history of animation, make their own flipping book animations, make thaumatropes and/or praxinoscopes, explore different animation techniques and, of course, design and make their own fantastic animations using apps and software.
This Christmas, I’ve put together a step-by-step computing lesson plan and teacher resources for creating an animated snowman GIF. You can download the lesson and resources and use them your own classrooms for a little festive fun!
Create an animated GIF
The lesson plan contains lots of ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment: from making a very simple animated sequence to more able pupils:
animating backgrounds as well as characters and objects
adding 3D effects (e.g. shadows)
creating more frames for smoother movement
switching backgrounds to create scene changes
animating more than one object
A little festive flavour of what our full six week animation unit offers and another Christmas gift to you!
Ada Lovelace had it worse, but as one of the few women undertaking a Computing Science degree in the 90’s, I’m used to being a minority. I’ve never understood why it is such a male dominated industry because I love it. I don’t put this down to sexism. Throughout my studies and beyond in the workplace as a software engineer and, later, project manager I have been treated with respect at all times by men in my field.
I have my own theories about why girls don’t take to computer science as wholeheartedly as their male counterparts and they are, in my opinion, largely down to teaching – or lack thereof. Which is why it’s great that, here in the UK, learning computer science is statutory from the age of 5 because it allows us teachers the (almost unique) opportunity to engage girls early in this creative and fascinating subject. Not just enabling them to enter into the tech industry later if they want to but because it’s absolutely crucial to know how to communicate, collaborate and express yourself in the modern digital world.
In her blog post of 2009 (when Ada Lovelace Day was born) Suw Charman-Anderson speaks of research pointing to need for women to need to see female role models. If that’s true then, given the amount of women teaching computing in the UK, we should surely see an upsurge in engagement in computing by girls and, empowerment through it! That is, if their role model’s are good ones; who show a passion and enthusiasm for the subject and teach it in creative, fun and challenging ways. I hope that, since its introduction into the National Curriculum in 2014, we are making good strides towards achieving this. There’s no excuse not to as there is a wealth of support and resources available to support teachers and schools. I regularly produce free lesson plans and support materials to, hopefully, inspire and motivate teachers of primary computing.
This Ada Lovelace day (13th October 2020) I’ve put together a step-by-step lesson plan and supporting resources adapted from iCompute’s Cross Curricular Computing pack for teaching Computing with History. Suitable for pupils aged 7-11, it involves researching Ada Lovelace and producing a webpage about their findings using basic HTML.
Download and use to show your pupils how women have been instrumental in the transformation of the technological world!
Regular readers will know that I’ve previously created a 6 week coding unit for pupils aged 9-11 using BitsBox. Bitsbox uses a simplified version of Javascript, and provides tools that enable pupils to develop their own apps.
It’s a great stepping stone from the blocks-based languages and environments your pupils may have already mastered (E.g. Scratch, App Inventor, Tynker etc) on to text-based languages.
PRIMM
I’ve been researching pedagogies to support computing mastery and PRIMM is a programming pedagogy developed by Dr Sue Sentence and the Computing Education team at Kings College London based on the notion that its difficult to become successful at writing code if you cannot read it.
I have developed a new step-by-step lesson plan that uses Bitsbox and I’m using the PRIMM approach for teaching programming in this one.
Predict | Run | Investigate | Modify | Make
PRIMM stands for Predict | Run | Investigate | Modify | Make. The approach enables teachers to support pupils by giving them some code that they first understand and then build upon towards making their own.
It’s a great way to structure a lesson and think it’ll make a real difference to those pupils who have difficulty understanding some programming concepts.
Feel free to download this lesson and try PRIMM in your own classroom.
Download the Lesson Plan
Use the PRIMM programming approach to develop a program from an ice cream dodging game into a variation of Hungry Hippos.
Challenge your pupils to design algorithms and program the game using a text-based programming language, variables and functions.
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see support resource which is included in the pack) and/or write a more simple version. Your more able pupils could:
change the speed, direction and size of flying ice creams
make the game multi-play and multi-level
complete the game to a time
create Game Over functions
create sound tracks and jingles for the app
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative.
The Summer term is drawing to a close, the weather is warm and you’ll no doubt have lots of activities planned to take advantage of/celebrate the weather in your classes. Let’s not forget about Computing though. Take your pupils outside if you have laptops or mobile devices and use Scratch 2.0 with your Key Stage 2 children (pupils aged 7-11) and our free lesson for summer themed primary computing with supporting resources.
It’s a great end-of term opportunity for your pupils to showcase what they have learned all year in their programming lessons.
Click to download iCompute’s free summer computing lesson plan
I’ve written another step-by-step lesson plan and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using and have added to iCompute to celebrate Summer. Feel free to download and use in your own classroom.
Summer time and the weather is sweet. Makes you want to make a nice cool treat… Challenge your pupils to create algorithms and program an ice-cream simulation/game.
Free ice-cream stand simulation programming activity
Pupil Support Card
As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see Ice Cream stand card which is included in the pack) and/or concentrate on programming random customers and ice-cream combinations to appear.
Your more able pupils could:
program timers, scores and lives (e.g. customers leave ‘hide’ if their order isn’t made within time limits)
add a series of levels that become increasingly more challenging
generate random prices within a range
program your customers to pay
calculate and give change
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Plus program templates and partially-written programs for teacher and pupil support. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative!
Click to download our free lesson plan and computing resources
Looking for Christmas Computing lessons and activities? Christmas is just around the corner and it’s time to have some fun and challenge pupils to show what they know about coding in Scratch.
I’ve prepared a step-by-step lesson plan and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using in my computing lessons to celebrate all that is Christmas and festive. Feel free to download and use in your own classroom.
It’s Christmas Eve and Santa is off on his travels around the world delivering presents when catastrophe strikes! He’s fallen out of his Sleigh! Challenge your pupils to create algorithms and program Santa to get back into his sleigh in any way they know.
Lots of opportunities for differentiation here. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see Catch Me Card which is included in the pack) and/or write a simple program where Santa is moved using arrow keys. Your more able pupils could:
program Santa to follow the mouse
change the sleigh to make glide randomly across the sky
add sound effects when the sleigh is caught
program presents to appear/disappear
program presents to change effects (e.g. colour or size)
program presents to fall, so the player must dodge them
program Santa to throw snowballs at randomly appearing presents – Angry Birds style
Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative with my gift to you!