Kids Who Code: Starting a Coding Club - What Next?

This fall, I started a Grades 2-5 coding club at our school (which you can read about here).  I'm sharing our experiences in hopes of helping others wanting to start a coding club and also to document this aspect of the Kids Who Code project.

In our first coding club meetings, students worked in multi-age teams to complete Scratch Jr. challenges using activities from their website.  After the first couple of meetings, students were able to work fairly independently in Scratch Jr, so I started working with small groups to introduce other coding tools.  Since I didn’t want to take whole teams away from their Scratch Jr. challenges, I chose a grade to work with each week while the other students continued with Scratch Jr.  I picked different tools to introduce to each grade so that, as a collective club, we had experience with a variety of tools.  For example, I introduced Lightbot to our Grade 5 members and set up Kodable accounts for the Grade 2s.  This system of “small group instruction” works well, since teaching 50 kids at a time seems a bit overwhelming to me.   

There were a few little “housekeeping” tasks that came up for us as a new coding club.  If you're thinking of starting a club, they are things to consider when you're planning!

Clean up – On the first day, I didn’t even think about the fact that there isn’t a garbage can in the gym, so we had to make a habit of bringing one in from my classroom.  I also realized that we needed to sweep the gym floor after our meetings since we were eating our lunches in there, so I asked for student volunteers and was very pleased to have more than enough students offer to help.  (I actually turn down students every week because so many of them volunteer to help – what a great bunch of kids I work with!).  So basically, whichever 3-4 kids volunteer first stay for a few minutes after our meeting and I give them the brooms to clean up – easy!   

Attendance – I felt it was important to have a record of which students were meeting with me each week, so I made a simple “class list” of club members.  Older students volunteer to check off all members in attendance or I carry my clipboard with me as I circulate during meetings and mark down attendance as I work with students.   

Membership – I’m still working on this one.  Over 60 students signed up to try coding club.  Most of them attended our first few meetings to see what it was like.  Now that we have been running for several weeks, a few students have decided not to attend.  I’ve been doing lots of thinking about this… is it okay to “let” them quit?  Should their parents sign off on it since their parents signed the form for them to participate?  Is it important that students commit to attending every meeting or is it okay for them to choose their usual lunchtime routine and outdoor play after an initial trial period?  I’m leaning towards the latter – for several reasons.  Coding club is an extracurricular activity.  Sure, we are learning a lot, but it’s meant to be fun.  I don’t want to force kids to attend.  I also think that it was great for students to sign up and “give it a try”.  When I sign up for a new exercise class or activity, I expect to have a choice about whether or not I continue with it – and I think our students deserve that same choice.  That said, I may still create a simple note to go home so that parents are aware that their child is no longer attending.   In future years, I would discuss this aspect with students and come to an agreement about membership in our club.  

On the whole, our coding club start-up has run very smoothly and I really enjoy working with the students each week.  It's nice to reconnect with my former students and get to know some students I didn't teach.  If you're thinking of starting a coding club, I'd certainly encourage you to give it a try!

  

Kids Who Code:Starting a Coding Club

Back in 2014, I started working on the Kids Who Code project with fellow educators Mrs. Devon Caldwell and Mrs. Connie Lowe.  After successfully introducing coding in the classroom and hosting our first Kids Who Code Code-a-thon last school year, I was excited to start coding with my new class of Grade 1s again this year.  But I also had a bigger goal in mind -- to introduce all of the students in our school to coding.   I'd heard of coding clubs being run in other schools and decided to give it a try at Hamiota Elementary.  Back in November, I invited Grades 2-5 students to sign up (with parental permission) and I'm pleased to report we've been going strong (or coding strong) since!  I haven't blogged about the experience yet, but I'm working on a series of posts now, as I reflect on our first several weeks.

For others running coding club or interested in getting started, here's what worked for us:

Set Up & Planning:

• All Grades 2-5 students received information about the Coding Club with the sign up form
• Once students had signed up (over 60!) I booked the only space large enough to hold all of us (the gym) for one noon hour per week
• Next, I started my prep work
• I looked for the perfect "kickoff" video and finally settled on this one from Code.org

• Next, I debated over which coding tool to start with and finally decided on Scratch Jr. Scratch Jr. was my students' favourite tool last year and they have great printable instructions for beginner coders in their teacher resources.
• I asked to borrow every iPad in the school and then I worried about how 60 kids would share 15 devices... Then I came up with multi-age teams of 4 students who would work together during our first club meetings.
• I printed out 3-4 copies of the 9 different Scratch Jr. activities plus made copies of the instructions that my class wrote last year.  I numbered the activities 1-10 so teams could easily keep track of which one they were working on. Teams and challenges were listed on posters that students could use to check off completed activities and find their device. 
  
• I developed attendance sheets by grade so I could keep track of who was in attendance at club meetings 

Kickoff Day: 
Kids flooded into the gym with their lunches and gathered in small groups to chat and eat.  I used my harmonica (PAX quiet signal) to get everyone's attention and we started our first official coding club meeting!  Our lunch hour is short (45 minutes) so we got right down to it:

• watched introductory video
• goal setting and rules - Students told me why they'd joined the club and what their goals were.  Students also shared what they thought the rules should be.  I recorded their ideas on large poster paper and we keep them posted for all meetings.  

• Scratch Jr. challenge - I called out teams and had students pick up a device and a challenge.  They got right to work on following the instructions for their activities... then the bell rang shortly after, bringing our first meeting to a close.  Although we didn't get in a lot of coding time, I felt the time we spent on introductory activities was well worth it. 

Next...

During the weekly meetings that followed, students became more independent with using the posters to find their device and challenge instructions.  The multi-age teams worked very well, with students working together and taking turns to be the one actually touching the screen.  Having 10 different activities available allowed teams to work at different paces - they just checked off their completed challenge (usually after showing me) and then moved on to another one.  I moved around the gym checking in on teams and answering questions. 

Coding Club: Computer Science Education Week

This post is part of a series of entries documenting the startup of our Kids Who Code Coding Club at Hamiota Elementary.  

During Computer Science Education Week, I explained the Hour of Code movement to coding club students and introduced them to the code.org tutorials.  Since we have so many members (and only one of me!) I had to get creative in order to effectively share the tutorials with students.  I wanted to make sure that students got to spend most of the time actually engaged in coding and not struggling to get started or waiting for me to help them.  Luckily, my grade 1s had already done some work that would come in handy… 

As a part of our text-type study on procedural texts, my grade 1s had written instructions for how to access the code.org tutorials.  The instructions were designed to be used by guests at the Kids Who Code Code-a-thon which my grade 1s organized to celebrate Hour of Code. Using the instructions at coding club was a great way to help students more independently access the tutorials (thus keeping me sane and ensuring that students were making good use of their time).   

The code-a-thon event we hosted was another opportunity for coding club members to experience some new coding tools.  Many of the classes in our school attended the event and had the chance to briefly try out 1 or 2 coding tools at the stations run by my grade 1 coders.  The following week, I gave all club members the choice to code with any tool they’d tried.  Many students chose to work with a tool they’d tried out at the code-a-thon, others worked on the code.org tutorials again and some picked a favourite tool that they’d learned during previous meetings.  I believe that choice is important for students and also very engaging… 50 children coding (relatively) quietly in small groups with their peers on the last Wednesday before Christmas break is pretty solid proof for me that learners are engaged.   

I have found (just as I have found in my classroom) that even if only a few students have experience with a particular coding tool, they will work together to teach each other and support each other when they run into challenges. 

 

Coding Club: Exploring Robotics thanks to ManACE!

This post is part of a series of entries documenting the startup of our Kids Who Code Coding Club at Hamiota Elementary. 

The Kids Who Code project at Hamiota Elementary School focuses on introducing computer science and coding to young learners in engaging and meaningful ways.  Using student-friendly coding tools, students and teachers are learning how to code and exploring ways to build important 21^st century skills through coding.  This year, a noon hour coding club for grades 2-5 students is being offered.  In one of their initial club meetings, students set goals and shared their interests related to computer science and coding.  One common goal that students identified was to explore robotics.  Many students expressed a strong desire to code robots and build robots.  Thanks to a ManACE Seed Grant, students can now act on those desires!

Since learning about robotics was a student-identified goal, students have been involved in the decision making for this project.  The first step was to decide which robotics products to purchase, so coding club members worked together to research different options for educational robotics.  Students were asked to identify pros, cons, features and pricing for a variety of products, including  BeeBots, Dash & Dot robots, Sphero and Cubelets.   Once students had completed their research, each club member voted on their top two choices.  Students felt that the Sphero robots and Cubelets would be best for the club.  

The Cubelets and Sphero robots have now arrived, so students are exploring all that is possible with these exciting new tools! Students will be reviewing their robotics purchases to inform other students and schools, so be sure to check back for more information in the coming months.  Our reviews will be posted on this blog and shared on Twitter (@LeahO77).