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In this activity, you'll build shapes and think about patterns. Shapes and TurnsDownload Materials: Toothpicks (or you can use paper clips, straws, or other thin objects that are the same length) Directions: Take three toothpicks and make a triangle. Then take four toothpicks and make a square. Compare the two shapes. Pay attention to their angles. Which shape’s angles are smaller?  Imagine you are small enough to walk along the toothpicks. Imagine yourself walking along each of your shapes. Picture yourself coming to a corner and making a turn. For which shape did you have to turn farther?  Now tilt the sides of your square a bit to the side, so they are not vertical. What do you notice about the angles now? Where are the smaller angles and where…

Adapted from Code.orgIn this unplugged activity (no computing device needed) you are going to guide a partner toward making drawings, without letting your partner see the original image. The activity will help you to understand the difficulty of translating real problems into computer programs, discover that while your ideas may seem clear to you and others, they can be misinterpreted by a computer. Lastly, this activity will provide you with practice in communicating ideas through codes and symbols. For this exercise, you will work with a partner. First, individually develop a design using sheets of 4x4 graph paper (Don’t let your partner see your design). Starting at the upper left-hand corner, write down directions using only the commands shown below for your ROBOT (A.K.A. partner) to recreate your designMove One…

In this project, you will create a program using only 10 types of blocks. Use them once, twice, or multiple times, but you will use each block at least once.  You are encouraged to be as creative as you would like! Your only limitation is the type of blocks you can use for this program. Go to our starter project on Scratch website that has the 10 blocks you can useSpend 20 minutes creating any program you would like using only the 10 blocks in the program (Remember: You may use each block as many times as you would like. But every block must be used at least once!)If you would like to save your project, you can do it two ways at the top menu You can download the…

This activity will engage you in some computational thinking using just paper and pencil! Drawing from DirectionsDownload Materials: Pencil and paper; a partner or two to try your directions Directions: Draw a simple line design. There are samples below. You can make adjustments to your interests or your desired level of challenge. Write directions for how someone else could draw your design without looking at it first. If it helps, you can decompose the design into parts and focus on writing directions for one part at a time. Computer scientists decompose problems all the time! When you are finished writing directions, ask a family member to follow your directions. Don’t show them your design!  Check out the drawing your partner made from your directions. Does it look like you expected?…

Over the last couple of years, we have been working with elementary teachers to ensure that all students having access to computer science ideas and practices early on in their education. Our teacher partners have been leveraging both unplugged (without a computing device) and plugged (with a computing device) activities to bring computer science into their classroom. We have focused this work under the broad umbrella of computational thinking, which includes practices that computer scientists and programmers engage in. We believe that it is important for elementary kids to develop these skills and what it means to think computationally. Some of these computational thinking practices include, problem decomposition (breaking problems into manageable sub-problems), algorithms (designing and using a sequence of instructions), abstraction (reducing complexity by focusing on most essential details),…