Chatterbooks Activity Pack Coding Skills - Telling computers what to do!

Reading and activity ideas for your Chatterbooks group

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Coding Skills This Chatterbooks activity pack highlights four great titles including a series package of four books about coding from our Children’s Reading Partners publisher partner QED Publishing, written by computer expert Max Wainewright. The books are:

How to Code Bind Up, Books 1-4 from the “How to Code” series – Everything you need to know about Scratch, Logo. Python, HTML and Javascript

How to Code: The Grown-Ups’ Guide – The trouble-shooting handbook for parents and teachers

20 Games to Create with Scratch

Design, Animate and Create with Computer Graphics Each book contains activity led guidance to coding and learning how to tell computers what to do! Plus there are lots of step-by-step projects and levels for children to build up and practise their skills. In this pack, as well as details about these books, you’ll also find some ideas for discussion and activities around computer coding to enjoy with your Chatterbooks groups. The pack is brought to you by The Reading Agency and their publisher

partners QED Publishing, www.quartoknows.com Chatterbooks (www.chatterbooks.org.uk) is a reading group programme for children aged 4 to 12 years. It is coordinated by The Reading Agency and its patron is author Dame Jacqueline Wilson. Chatterbooks groups run in libraries and schools, supporting and inspiring children’s literacy development by encouraging them to have a really good time reading and talking about books. The Reading Agency is an independent charity working to inspire more people to read more through programmes for adults, young people and Children – including the Summer Reading Challenge, and Chatterbooks. See http://www.readingagency.org.uk Children’s Reading Partners is a national partnership of children’s publishers and libraries working together to bring reading promotions and author events to as many children and young people as possible.

Contents

3 Coding Skills - The books and the author 5 Coding in the National Curriculum 6 Coding Skills - Warm up activities 8 Longer activities using these QED books by Max Wainewright 11 More reading suggestions

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Coding Skills – The books and the author

Max Wainewright Max has written over 20 educational software titles for children. He led the design of Discovery Education Coding and still works on it as a consultant. His programs and websites have won a number of awards including BETT, ERA and Practical Pre-School Gold Awards. Max also used to be a primary school teacher. He lives in

London with his wife and two children. The How to Code series introduces coding through clear and concise information teamed with simple and practical tasks, from drawing shapes, giving instructions in code, building games and much more! With coding having been recently introduced into the UK curriculum as a result of a 'skills gap' within the industry, there's never been a better time to learn about programming.

How to Code: Bind Up 978-1784936655 This is a collection of books 1-4 from the series 'How to Code'. Learn a variety of different coding techniques with this colourful and easy to follow guide. Discover everything you need to know to get coding!

Starting with basic coding concepts and using step-by-step instructions, learn all about loops, variables and selection –

developing your coding skills until you can create a website, make a game and much more!

Book 1 introduces basic coding using step-by-step instructions to help children learn that commands need to be clear and precise and given in the correct sequence for the programme to work. It contains activities which help to teach these ideas, initially without using a computer. These activities would work well with your Chatterbooks group, especially younger children. Book 2 builds on basic coding, introducing loops and variables. Book 3 takes coding further and explains how to use selection with 'if' statements. Book 4 develops coding techniques further and readers can learn how to create codes that can run in web pages. Introduces basic HTML and JavaScript.

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How to Code: Parent and Teacher Guide 978-1784932404 Book 5. A guide for parents and teachers, which provides an overview of the topics covered in books 1–4 of the series. This title includes background information, troubleshooting and extra activities to support children (and grown-ups!) in learning key coding concepts.

Design, Animate and Create with Computer Graphics 978-1682971666 This resource offers more than 20 amazing projects to design, animate and create digitally, from birthday cards to 3D cities and more. With five chapters covering bitmap painting, vector graphics, photo-editing, animations, and 3D drawing, you will be a super-designer by the end of the book!

Inspiration is offered from artists, from the graffiti art of Banksy to the geometric art of Piet Mondrian. Each of the five chapters focuses on a key area of computer graphics, explaining the concepts and how to use the software, and then offering projects that progress in difficulty from simple to "wow". Instructions are always easy to understand, with possible areas of confusion picked out.

20 Games to Create with Scratch 978-1784936648 Learn how to code your very own computer games using Scratch software. With easy-to-follow, illustrated step-by-step instructions, create all types of popular games from ‘Snake’ and ‘Brick Bouncer’ to driving and action games. Each chapter

progresses in difficulty, introducing key coding concepts through simple and practical tasks from drawing shapes and giving instructions in code to building games and much more!

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Coding Skills! Ideas for discussion and activities Coding is now included in the national curriculum – here’s a summary of what is covered: Key Stage 1 (5-6 year-olds): Children will be learning what algorithms are, which will not always involve computers. When explained as “a set of instructions” teachers may illustrate the idea using recipes, or by breaking down the steps of children’s morning routines. But they will also be creating and debugging simple programs of their own, developing logical reasoning skills and taking their first steps in using devices to “create, organise, store, manipulate and retrieve digital content”. Key Stage 2 (7-11 year-olds): Slightly older primary-school children will be creating and debugging more complicated programs with specific goals and getting to grips with concepts including variables and “sequence, selection, and repetition in programs”. They will still be developing their logical reasoning skills and learning to use websites and other internet services. There will be more practice at using devices for collecting, analysing and presenting back data and information. At all these levels, children will also be studying computer and internet safety, including how to report concerns about “content or contact” online. At many schools now, and libraries too, there are coding clubs for children. See Code Club, https://www.codeclub.org.uk/ - this is a nation-wide network of volunteer-led school coding clubs for children aged 9 to 11. Here’s a description from an observer at one of these clubs, of the kind of activity that children are involved in – and the kind of activity inspired by the QED books described in this pack: The challenge today is to make a cat named Felix move across the screen using a series of simple commands. The children can customise the background and Felix’s outfit as well as adding in things for Felix to catch or run away from by using a drop-down menu to select and drag blocks of code from the left hand side of their screens into sequences in the middle. The commands look like brightly coloured Lego bricks that slot together like Tetris pieces. 'They end up forming little scripts that react to clicks,’ White, who has been teaching Code Club here for two terms, says. 'It’s very much how you would write code by hand, but this teaches children the structure without them having to worry about typos.’ A later stage of Code Club involves a program called Python where the children don’t have blocks to move about but instead choose coding expressions from a dictionary. 'The fun bit is asking the kids, “How do I get Felix to this point on the screen?” Some of them just click everything, but others, you can see, get it immediately. This program allows both to get to the same point eventually and understand what they’ve done.’

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And for younger children see Bee-Bot www.bee-bot.us which is a colourful, easy-to-operate, and friendly little robot - a perfect tool for teaching sequencing, estimation, problem-solving, and just having fun!

Warm ups Coding Skills Wordsearch Here are some words to do with coding and computers – look for them in the squares: across, down, up, and from right to left. When you’ve found them all, talk together about them. What are they and and how does each of them fit into the computer/coding picture?

SCRATCH HTML LOGO PYTHON BOTS BUG SCREEN KEYBOARD MOUSE GRAPHICS PIXELS ANIMATION COMMAND EMAIL DELETE BLOG P Y T H O N X N O I T A M I N A Y P V X V E Q B G X A S F Z V Q X E T E L E D Q O P B Z J X K F B M K B X R Q S L E X I P W X H S F G D W C F Z P F Q J F B G T W X R X K S X P F X J E S U O M P J A Q W P J F P E Q F J K P L X F P Q X W Z P J M W Z V F M Z J X H K J Q X D N A M M O C F K Z Q I V F J B X J I P X J B G X G W C V X T O V Q L X U F Z K Q

O V S C R A T C H Z J W Q G J W L X J V X W S Z Q J X P Q X G Z B U G K Q V F J G F S Z W J V P Z Q P W F X Q P J T X P J Q Z F X F Z Q X Z J W D R A O B Y E K

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Coding Skills Scrambled Words The letters in the words below have all been scrambled up – can you unscramble them to find six more words about computers and coding?

MAGES We play these (5) _ _ _ _ _ GONDIC Putting together a set of words which tell a computer what to do (6) _ _ _ _ _ _ WAG BEEP A page of information constructed using HTML & connected to the World Wide Web (3,4) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ MUTE CROPS We use these for writing, doing things on the internet, playing games, storing & finding information, and much more! (9) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ RIP TERN This enables you to turn online documents into paper hard copies (7) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ OR GRAMP The special commands that tell a computer how to do something (7) _ _ _ _ _ _ _

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Things to talk about

Can you think of all the things you can do on a computer? Which of these do you like doing best?

Can you think of all the things that work with computer devices? For example sat nav, traffic lights, washing machine, cash dispenser, automatic doors, camera etc.

Longer activities These activities all use the QED coding skills books by Max Wainewright, featured in this pack. Amazing algorithms game How to Code Bind Up page 11 This is a board game which introduces the concept of algorithms – the steps a program needs to take to solve a particular problem. Children could do this individually, in pairs, or as a group.

Make a simple program How to Code Bind Up page 20 This uses Scratch, where children drag and join commands together instead of typing them. They can also learn to draw simple shapes.

Create a quiz How to Code Bind Up pages 69-71, 80-81, 113 Once children have practised the basic skills introduced on these pages, and are ready to make their own simple quiz, plan your quiz together in your group.

What sort of quiz will it be – general knowledge? Or on a particular theme?

Prepare your questions – go for simple ones, with one word answers

Test it out on each other as you are programming it – then children can try it out on their friends!

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Create a web page for your Chatterbooks group How to Code Bind Up pages 96-99, 116-7 (see also the index for further useful pages) Plan together the topics for your page and what you want to say – e.g.:

What the group does

When and where the group meets

Who’s in the group

Favourite books

Favourite activities

Some pics!

Write and publish a book review How to Code pages 96-99, 116-7 (see also the index for further useful pages) Using the skills learned for creating a web page, make a page for your group’s book reviews. Here’s a template for what you might include in your reviews:

Chatterbooks Book Review Title of book:

Author

Illustrator

What is the book about?

What was your favourite bit?

Who was your favourite character?

How did you feel when you finished the book?

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What did you learn from it?

What are the illustrations like?

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Coding Skills More reading

AUTHOR TITLE PUBLISHER ISBN

Non-fiction about computing

Shane Birley Super Skills: How to be a Blogger and Vlogger in 10 Easy Lessons

QED 978-1784934552

Marc Scott & Mick Marston

A Beginner’s Guide to Coding Bloomsbury 978-1472928641

Young Rewired State Get Coding! Walker 978-1406366846

Stories about computers and computer games

Malorie Blackman Hacker Corgi 978-0552551649

Eoin Colfer The Eternity Code (Artemis Fowl)

Hyperion 978-1423124535

Alan Gibbons Shadow of the Minotaur Dolphin 978-1858817217

Anthony Horowitz Stormbreaker Walker 978-1406360196

Wordsearch answer P Y T H O N X N O I T A M I N A Y P V X V E Q B G X A S F Z V Q X E T E L E D Q O P B Z J X K F B M K B X R Q S L E X I P W X H S F G D W C F Z P F Q J F B G T W X R X K S X P F X J E S U O M P J A Q W P J F P E Q F J K P L X F P Q X W Z P J M W Z V F M Z J X H K J Q X D N A M M O C F K Z Q I V F J B X J I P X J B G X G W C V X T O V Q L X U F Z K Q

O V S C R A T C H Z J W Q G J W L X J V X W S Z Q J X P Q X G Z B U G K Q V F J G F S Z W J V P Z Q P W F X Q P J T X P J Q Z F X F Z Q X Z J W D R A O B Y E K

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Scrambled! Answers

1. GAMES 2. CODING 3. WEB PAGE 4. COMPUTERS 5. PRINTER 6. PROGRAM