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Tagged with 'activities'

Teach Botley to Pick-up Litter!

Discover the possibilities Botley brings to your early coding curriculum.  Aligned to CSTA standards, these printable classroom activities will help your little learners discover coding without any screens or apps. Just power on Botley, and you’re ready to go!

Click here to download your botley classroom coding activity

Code botley to pick up litter to teach students about Sequences, Loops, and Conditionals.Share your classroom coding success with us on social media using #Botley!
Teach Botley to Pick-up Litter!
Discover the possibilities Botley brings to your early coding curriculum.  Aligned to CSTA standards, these printable classroom activities will help your little learners discover coding without any screens or apps. Just power on Botley, and you’re ready to go!

Click here to download your botley classroom coding activity

Code botley to pick up litter to teach students about Sequences, Loops, and Conditionals.Share your classroom coding success with us on social media using #Botley!
READ MORE

Help Botley to Explore a Coordinate Grid!

Discover the possibilities Botley brings to your early coding curriculum.  Aligned to CSTA standards, these printable classroom activities will help your little learners discover coding without any screens or apps. Just power on Botley, and you’re ready to go!

Click here to download your botley classroom coding activity

Use Botley to develop programs with sequences and simple loops, to express ideas or address a problem.Share your classroom coding success with us on social media using #Botley!
Help Botley to Explore a Coordinate Grid! Discover the possibilities Botley brings to your early coding curriculum.  Aligned to CSTA standards, these printable classroom activities will help your little learners discover coding without any screens or apps. Just power on Botley, and you’re ready to go!

Click here to download your botley classroom coding activity

Use Botley to develop programs with sequences and simple loops, to express ideas or address a problem.Share your classroom coding success with us on social media using #Botley!
READ MORE

Help Botley Draw Shapes on a Coordinate Grid

Discover the possibilities Botley brings to your early coding curriculum.  Aligned to CSTA standards, these printable classroom activities will help your little learners discover coding without any screens or apps. Just power on Botley, and you’re ready to go!

Click here to download your botley classroom coding activity

Help Botley draw shapes on a coordinate grid. This activity will help teach using sequences and simple loops, to express ideas or address a problem.Share your classroom coding success with us on social media using #Botley!
Help Botley Draw Shapes on a Coordinate Grid Discover the possibilities Botley brings to your early coding curriculum.  Aligned to CSTA standards, these printable classroom activities will help your little learners discover coding without any screens or apps. Just power on Botley, and you’re ready to go!

Click here to download your botley classroom coding activity

Help Botley draw shapes on a coordinate grid. This activity will help teach using sequences and simple loops, to express ideas or address a problem.Share your classroom coding success with us on social media using #Botley!
READ MORE

Why Young Children Should Learn How to Code

From apps to board games, hands-on toys like Learning Resources’ Botley™ the Coding Robot, classes at school, and even dedicated summer camps, it feels like we’re surrounded by coding! Coding is definitely a hot topic and it’s becoming a big business. But can little kids really learn to code? And even if they can, should they?The answer is a great, big, YES! Even if you don’t think your child is destined to be the next Sheryl Sandberg, there are big time benefits to learning to code and kids can start as young as preschool. In fact, like most things, learning to code is actually easier when kids are younger.Some people think that knowing how to code will soon be as important as knowing how to read. We’re not ready to go quite that far, but an understanding of computer science – the way computers and apps work, will be pretty key in our kids’ futures. Whether they work in coding or not, understanding the basics of how software is programmed will help kids use it more efficiently, even if it’s just to search for the latest video from their favorite YouTuber.girl readingThat said, there are more concrete and immediate benefits to an early introduction to coding, the biggest of them being logic. Learning to think logically – also called computational thinking – plays a critical role in your child’s mental growth. Coding teaches kids to identify a problem; find a solution; break that solution down into single, actionable steps; and identify any problems, or errors along those steps. This is the same, sequential though process used to solve a math problem, understand a scientific process, and write a story.math with dotsSpeaking of, believe it or not, learning to code encourages your child’s creativity! Because there’s not just one solution to every problem, coding enables your child to come up with their own way to think about and address a need.Teaching kids to code also promotes curiosity and innovation. What problems do your kids see? What are some of the many ways these problems might be solved? When they see a problem, rather than looking up an answer, coding encourages kids to find and try their own, out of the box, solutions.girl with eye glassAnd, of course, learning to code prepares kids to use and manage the technology they’ll use every day, for the rest of their lives, including to test at school.A simple search will reveal tons of different ways to introduce your child, even your very young child, to coding. Botley The Coding Robot, provides a hands-on, screen-free introduction to coding, enabling kids to build and program, or code, their very own robot to follow all kinds of commands, including navigating an obstacle course, capturing a flag, breaking through a ‘brick’ wall, and more. The Let’s Go Code!™ Activity Set is a fun, physical way to get your kids started with coding. Kids step, hop, spin, and more, to complete the mazes they code with the included coding cards.

No matter how you choose to introduce or practice coding skills with your kiddo, you can feel good about the fact that coding is exercising their growing brains, essentially helping them learn how to learn.

 
Why Young Children Should Learn How to Code From apps to board games, hands-on toys like Learning Resources’ Botley™ the Coding Robot, classes at school, and even dedicated summer camps, it feels like we’re surrounded by coding! Coding is definitely a hot topic and it’s becoming a big business. But can little kids really learn to code? And even if they can, should they?The answer is a great, big, YES! Even if you don’t think your child is destined to be the next Sheryl Sandberg, there are big time benefits to learning to code and kids can start as young as preschool. In fact, like most things, learning to code is actually easier when kids are younger.Some people think that knowing how to code will soon be as important as knowing how to read. We’re not ready to go quite that far, but an understanding of computer science – the way computers and apps work, will be pretty key in our kids’ futures. Whether they work in coding or not, understanding the basics of how software is programmed will help kids use it more efficiently, even if it’s just to search for the latest video from their favorite YouTuber.girl readingThat said, there are more concrete and immediate benefits to an early introduction to coding, the biggest of them being logic. Learning to think logically – also called computational thinking – plays a critical role in your child’s mental growth. Coding teaches kids to identify a problem; find a solution; break that solution down into single, actionable steps; and identify any problems, or errors along those steps. This is the same, sequential though process used to solve a math problem, understand a scientific process, and write a story.math with dotsSpeaking of, believe it or not, learning to code encourages your child’s creativity! Because there’s not just one solution to every problem, coding enables your child to come up with their own way to think about and address a need.Teaching kids to code also promotes curiosity and innovation. What problems do your kids see? What are some of the many ways these problems might be solved? When they see a problem, rather than looking up an answer, coding encourages kids to find and try their own, out of the box, solutions.girl with eye glassAnd, of course, learning to code prepares kids to use and manage the technology they’ll use every day, for the rest of their lives, including to test at school.A simple search will reveal tons of different ways to introduce your child, even your very young child, to coding. Botley The Coding Robot, provides a hands-on, screen-free introduction to coding, enabling kids to build and program, or code, their very own robot to follow all kinds of commands, including navigating an obstacle course, capturing a flag, breaking through a ‘brick’ wall, and more. The Let’s Go Code!™ Activity Set is a fun, physical way to get your kids started with coding. Kids step, hop, spin, and more, to complete the mazes they code with the included coding cards.

No matter how you choose to introduce or practice coding skills with your kiddo, you can feel good about the fact that coding is exercising their growing brains, essentially helping them learn how to learn.

 
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Learning Trees: Matching the Solar System

Learning about the solar system can feel disconnected from everyday life and very far away. This solar system matching activity uses a learning tree to bring lessons from outer space a little closer to home.

Getting Started

 We began by putting the planets in order by their distance from the sun. This first step is physical, visual and practical, and helps kids see and understand the solar system.

Play A Solar System Matching Game

First, I wrote the names of the planets on index cards then attached paper clips and a loop of wire to each. This made it easier to hang each tag on a tree branch. Christmas decoration hooks or twist ties can also work. We simply used what we had on hand.

Index cards

Index cards labelled with each planet's name

Earth on index card with wire

Add a loop of wire or an ornament hook for easy hanging

Then, we hung the sun from the ceiling of the living room. Because the inflatable sun is so large, it made sense to hang it up above the tree to provide more space for the planets.

Next, we hung the index cards around the tree. Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, sat at the very top and was only a few inches away from the inflatable sun hanging from the ceiling. We circled the rest of the index cards around the tree in the same order of the planets in the solar system.

Tagged Tree

Mercury at the top of the tree followed by Venus, then Earth.

Tagged Tree 2

The index cards circled the tree matching the order of the planets from the sun.

Each inflatable planet (and the sun) has convenient loops on the plug that make it easy to hang up.

Wire hanging from planet

Then, my four-year old daughter got to work. First, she identified Mercury in the row of planets we’d set out earlier and then looked for the matching index card.At four, she is pre-reading, so I asked her to find the index card that started with “M” near the top of the tree. She found the match and hung the planet up.

Matching planets with their tags

Then we moved on to Venus, Earth, the moon and the other planets. One by one, she matched each planet to its tag on the tree.With a larger tree, most of the planets will fit. With a smaller tree like ours, Uranus and Pluto sat on the floor.By the end of the activity, we had a Christmas tree loaded with planets, my daughter had a new visual understanding of the solar system and she recognized and matched the planets with their name tags.

How will you use the Giant Inflatable Solar System in learning with your kids?

One very full tree!

That's one full tree!

Learning Trees: Matching the Solar System

Learning about the solar system can feel disconnected from everyday life and very far away. This solar system matching activity uses a learning tree to bring lessons from outer space a little closer to home.

Getting Started

 We began by putting the planets in order by their distance from the sun. This first step is physical, visual and practical, and helps kids see and understand the solar system.

Play A Solar System Matching Game

First, I wrote the names of the planets on index cards then attached paper clips and a loop of wire to each. This made it easier to hang each tag on a tree branch. Christmas decoration hooks or twist ties can also work. We simply used what we had on hand.

Index cards

Index cards labelled with each planet's name

Earth on index card with wire

Add a loop of wire or an ornament hook for easy hanging

Then, we hung the sun from the ceiling of the living room. Because the inflatable sun is so large, it made sense to hang it up above the tree to provide more space for the planets.

Next, we hung the index cards around the tree. Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, sat at the very top and was only a few inches away from the inflatable sun hanging from the ceiling. We circled the rest of the index cards around the tree in the same order of the planets in the solar system.

Tagged Tree

Mercury at the top of the tree followed by Venus, then Earth.

Tagged Tree 2

The index cards circled the tree matching the order of the planets from the sun.

Each inflatable planet (and the sun) has convenient loops on the plug that make it easy to hang up.

Wire hanging from planet

Then, my four-year old daughter got to work. First, she identified Mercury in the row of planets we’d set out earlier and then looked for the matching index card.At four, she is pre-reading, so I asked her to find the index card that started with “M” near the top of the tree. She found the match and hung the planet up.

Matching planets with their tags

Then we moved on to Venus, Earth, the moon and the other planets. One by one, she matched each planet to its tag on the tree.With a larger tree, most of the planets will fit. With a smaller tree like ours, Uranus and Pluto sat on the floor.By the end of the activity, we had a Christmas tree loaded with planets, my daughter had a new visual understanding of the solar system and she recognized and matched the planets with their name tags.

How will you use the Giant Inflatable Solar System in learning with your kids?

One very full tree!

That's one full tree!

READ MORE