Computational Thinking PO4

This coding activity has been created out of some remedial numeracy work I have been doing with students in several schools.  It became clear to me that these students did not have a clear understanding of their basic facts or number bonds depending on your vocabulary choice and I decided that a good way for these students to solidify their understanding of these crucial numeracy building blocks was for them to investigate the patterns and then build a quick fire game to test their retention rates.  So whilst the maths in this activity is low and the coding required to build the game would identify it as a CT Po4 activity, becuase of the use of inputs, outputs, iteration and comparative operators, I feel that most students above year 4 could tackle this coding structure and furthermore, the underlying principles of the coding could be applied to all manner of test based activities.  (Heads up, I am currently developing a Te Reo vocab resource which would use a similar coding structure to this activity.)

This activity can be extended to include a scoring system and code to randomise the order in which the questions are fired at the user.  You could take this type of project further with the inclusion of a Makey Makey interface with 9 inputs and the students could use their own knowledge of basic facts to combine numbers to add up to the desired input, but that would take some thinking about!

For teachers wishing to see an example of the initial code you can see the Scratch example here, alternatively if you want to see an example working with the randomisation of the questions and the scoring system you can click on this link.  Please do not share these links with your students as it would defeat the point of the computational thinking challenges inherent in the inititial resource!

To use this resource, simply make a copy of this resource and rename it so that you become the owner of it then adapt it to meet the learning needs/intentions of your students/planning.  If you want us to make more of this kind of resource please contact us at david@dakinane.com and we will make more resources to share with you, related to your need.