Sunday, March 8, 2015

Teaching beginning fundamentals of programming in a board game! ROBOT TURTLE

I just do not know where to start.
One thing I have been noticing, is a trend in teaching children through games.  Games are a hands on fun way to engage children and not make them feel like it is work.  It is the practical use of information to solve a problem instead of drilling and drilling.  And researchers are very excited to find that this really works!  But we already know that children just learn better when they are having fun!
Second thing is, us parents realize that programming and coding are the future and techie geeky parents like us see that the needs of our education system have DRASTICALLY changed, but the system is just not changing fast enough with the times.  Leaving many families frustrated because we know WHAT we want our kids to have access to and we really expect them too!

Third, many of us parents are already uncomfortable with how electronics are taking over our lives.  Though we want our kids to learn these important skills, we just do not want them attached to a device all the time. How much is too much?

THEN ONE GAME answers all 3 of my concerns!  Another great game by Thinkfun called Robot Turtle.  This is a board game that teaches basic fundamental programming skills, I mean basic!  This game is literally posted as 4 to 14 years old!  It says 2 to 4 players, but my son and I had no problems just playing it together!
 In the game, just like beginning coding programs, the kid has a character.  Here it is a turtle.  they first practice basic skills of telling the turtles how to get to their jewels with basic cards that go straight, right or left.  Parents get to do some acting as they move the turtle the direction the child has laid out.  Then it gets more complicated with lasers and having to move obstructions.  After that then they begin to work on a card that they can use one function repeatedly and work to use as few cards as possible.
 We have the paid and unpaid Tynker with a cute little monster eating candy, Lightbot, Scratch and Code.  And these basic functions in this game are like what these 4 apps have. So our son is a little advanced for it, but he really enjoys it and he enjoys that I spend time playing it with him( that goes a long way too) The 3rd and 4th part are the parts that challenge him and he needs more practice.  But this game is really great for a novice and parents that just want to have fun with their family!  Knowing that you are giving your children a great start to a 21st century education!

No comments:

Post a Comment