Lower Schoolers Code Their Way to Fun

Did you know that everyone is a programmer? Adults and children program their morning routines, commutes, and study time, setting one task before the next and programming and coding each step in between. Humans can take those step-by-step skills and, with practice, program and code non-human machines to do the same.

This week, MICDS Lower Schoolers enjoyed five themed days all about coding. Students worked with various activities and hosted a spectacular family coding night where students, parents, and teachers embraced the infinite possibilities of learning how to code.

Science

Lower School Science Teacher Laura Pupillo designed engaging activities for her current units by adding a coding twist to each one.

Junior Kindergarteners experienced their first hands-on coding experience with Cubelets. When connected, these magnetic blocks morph into fun robots and teach the fundamentals of coding simultaneously. Using Think, Sense, and Act blocks, students discovered that the robots could move, spin, play sound, and light up! In Senior Kindergarten, students learned how to use Ozobots and coding tiles to create paths for the bot to travel and color commands to make it move in fun ways. They even turned their Ozobots into bears and coded them to prepare for hibernation by eating and walking through the forest to find a den.

First graders turned their Ozobots into pollinators. They color-coded the path for the pollinator to visit flowers and drop seeds, collecting data along the way. Second-grade students used OctoStudio to create a presentation for an upcoming assembly in which they’ll pass out native seed packs to the Lower School community. Students designed and coded scenes about seeds, pollinators, and native plants, which will be connected in a digital movie to show to Beasley students. In addition, second graders coded Ozobots to travel various migration routes, including an emperor penguin, sea turtle, and monarch butterfly.

Third graders connected to their ecosystems in two exciting ways. Using OctoStudio, they created Missouri ecosystem scenes with appropriate animals and plants. Then, they coded their animals to show predator/prey relationships. In addition, students also got to use our new Lego Essential kits to learn about motors, sensors, and block coding. Students built a herd animal with a color sensor and coded it to respond to a Lego Color representing predator/prey relationships. Fourth-grade students researched an animal and made a conductive poster. Connecting their poster to a Makey Makey, they could program speech buttons using Scratch.

Math & Computer Science

In Lower School homeroom classes, our teachers, along with JK-12 Math & Computer Science Department Chair Diane Broberg, Lower School Art Teacher Sarah Garner, and Lower School Coordinator of Instructional Technology Robyn Williams, led students through different activities such as using Sphero indi cars, creating book reports using OctoStudio and working through lessons on code.org.

The Lower School welcomed more than 70 families to a Family Coding Night where parents could join their students in the coding fun. They rotated through stations using Ozobots, Snap Circuits, Makey Makey, Sphero indi cars, and OctoStudio. They also enjoyed a visit from Code Ninjas, who taught students how to code in a game-based format. Middle and Upper School robotics students and an assortment of current and former faculty and staff members helped facilitate the fun in each classroom.

Each classroom also had a specific challenge. Students got their Coding Night cards stamped when they completed the challenge. At the night’s end, students who turned in a card with three stamps were entered into a drawing for an hour with Williams in the Lower School Makerspace.

Head of Lower School Amy Scheer said, «This was such a wonderful event for students and their families, and it was great to see the positive energy around coding.»

Upper School Math & Computer Science Teacher Travis Menghini shared, «It was great to see all the excitement of coding at such a young age! I’m super excited to reap the benefits eight years from now! I subbed in a fifth-grade science class for Branson Lawrence a few weeks ago and was completely amazed by their level of knowledge in coding. I was super impressed! It makes me really excited to teach my middle school Winter Term course [on website design] again in a few weeks!»

Janet Purdy P’19, ’21, a retired MICDS Upper School Math & Computer Science Teacher, attended the event to support this engaging STEM activity. She summarized the event in one word: family. She said, «I feel the chance for the families to experience coding together is a big part of the event. Often, parents don’t get the chance to see their children explore topics like coding, especially when they might not feel comfortable with the subject. We eliminated that barrier, offering a safe space where families can learn side by side without the frustration that sometimes comes with learning something new. Family Coding Night was not just about learning to code but about creating lasting memories as families discover new skills and share the excitement of learning in a supportive and fun environment.»

Pupillo said, «The energy was fantastic, and I think it’s fair to say this was a worthwhile experience for our families. It was great for our younger students to see the leadership of the Upper School students. I’m so thankful to be part of such an awesome team!»

Makerspace

Under the direction of Williams, the Lower School Makerspace served as an open field for working with Sphero indi cars, an entry-level learning robot for younger children where students can design and build mazes while learning the basics of coding and nurturing problem-solving and computational thinking skills. Students learned the straightforward mat colors of green, yellow, and red and how the indi car knows the command for each color that aligns with a standard traffic light. With many other mat colors in the box, the students needed to determine, through trial and error, what commands each held. Some are coded for a 90-degree right or left turn, and some for a 45-degree turn. The most fun mat was purple, which triggered a whole 360 spin of the car! Students leaned into this further by having the indi car be a bowling ball for a pint-sized bowling game.

The Lower School Makerspace also welcomed first graders and a special guest, Russ Hornsby P’36, and his team of Casper, an animator, and Chris, a multimedia director, from their company, Cepia. Cepia manufactures toys and games for children of all ages, including the toy phenomenon ZhuZhu Pets® in 2009.

Each team member described a little about what kinds of toys their company makes and their role in making them. They have team members who draw characters and animals and others who design toys and create 3D animations. And coding is at the center of all of it.

To make a 3D figure, the animator takes a drawing, traces around it on the computer, and begins sculpting like you would with clay, pushing the eyes in, pulling the nose out, modeling the hair, and then adding a skeleton inside it to make it move. To make the figure move, each movement must be programmed step-by-step. For some toys, like ZhuZhu Pets®, it can take up to two years to create a first idea, design drawings, build prototypes, test and debug, fix, produce, package, and market.

They shared examples of programmed things around us: websites, assembly lines, TV remote controls (and our lives!). They encouraged students to use their imagination to see what flavor of creativity they could bring into the world.

Williams said, «Our biggest takeaway from the presentation was the question, ‘How can we add more open-ended projects to bring out more creativity in our students?’ Mr. Hornsby and his team emphasized how children’s imaginations are vast and how we, as educators, can create more opportunities for our students to explore, create, fail, and retry with the tools and resources we have here in the Lower School Makerspace and at MICDS. It really left an impression on us and we look forward to seeing how we can incorporate this method into more projects and into Winter Term!»

Physical Education

Lower School PE Teachers Jim Lohr and Sue Orlando designed a game to move students through coding patterns on the gym floor using rubber discs and hula hoops. On small, four- to five-person teams, one student set the code using a stamp and pattern, while the other group members had to guess the pattern through trial and error, much like a mix between the games Mastermind and Concentration. Once students moved forward through a 12-part code, they graduated to a 16-part program to decode, and before long, they were on the other side of the gymnasium!

Spanish

In Lower School Spanish, Soledad Villagomez‘s students used OctoStudio to create a Thanksgiving family project. They used tools to draw a house or room, fill it with family members, and curate emojis to represent what they all like to eat at Thanksgiving. Then, they recorded Spanish audio detailing the scene and expressing what they were most thankful for this season. Once complete, students created their own fiesta de baile (a dance party) on code.org.

Library

Thomas Buffington, Lower School Librarian, and Nicole Liebman, Library Assistant, led a read-aloud for all grades with How to Code a Sandcastle by Josh Funk. The story is about a child named Pearl trying to build the perfect sandcastle, but things keep getting in the way! Pearl and her robot friend Pascal have one last chance; this time, they use code to get the job done. Students also solved educational puzzles with Bot Logic and explored games on code.org, such as Minecraft and Dance Party.

Buffington said, «It’s been so fun and engaging to practice coding with our elementary learners in the library! Coding is such an essential skill set for students in today’s digital world. Coding practice helps our Beasley friends develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity skills. We’re so fortunate to offer students the time and space to explore fundamental coding concepts so that they may carry these skills into their future as learners and community stakeholders.»