Introduction

Recap last week’s lesson. What is an algorithm? What sorts of instructions did we give? What made good or bad instructions?

Download this maze example (or just draw one yourself) and put it into your Interactive Whiteboard software (so you can draw over the top of the image) or open it into something like 2Paint a Picture by going to the Open folder and browsing to where you saved the download.

 

 

Ask the class to give you instructions how to navigate the maze. Follow their instructions, one at a time. Guide and adjust the language of the instructions that the children give if needed. Is that clear? does it make sense? Can we improve that instruction? How were the instructions the class gave overall?

 

2Go

Move onto the computers but ask the children to work with a partner, one computer between the two of them.

Log into Purple Mash, go to Tools and the Coding section, select 2Go.

 

 

(If you are using the old version of the 2Simple Collection open the Infant Video Toolkit in the 2Simple Collection and then choose 2Go.)

 

When you launch the app, use the page arrow buttons to find one of the empty backgrounds. The sky, grass or plain white background are all suitable.

 

  

 

Go to the app settings via the gear icon

 

 

Then adjust the Step length to the second smallest option.

 

 

Have a look at the options available in 2Go with the class.

 

 

Explain that we can drag the screen turtle to anywhere on the screen to begin. Ask the class - How do you think we make it move? Establish the arrows show is which way it’s going to move, each click of the arrow will move one grid square. We can change the line colour by selecting one of the pens. Can you help me to draw a capital letter H? What is the first instruction? 

Take their ideas, encouraging the use of left and right and reinforcing that each time they must give a clear direction instruction (up, down, left, right). Relate this back the Crocodile Maze activity last week. The arrow in the centre shows which direction was last selected.

 

 

Then go back to settings and choose the second option which has arrows and numbers.

 

 

Ask the class - How do you think this option works? What will be different? Why is this better? The numbers allow you to specify how many steps for each movement (again, like we did it the crocodile swamp activity), which means we can move further with each instruction, which means we can move further, faster.

Let's try it out. Clear the screen with the 'back to the start' button.

 

 

Ask the class - can you give me the instructions to draw a capital letter E.

 

Main task

Introduce the 2Go challenge cards, ask Partner A to pick a card and keep it secret from Partner B. Partner A should then give Partner B step-by-step instructions for how to draw the shape on the card without describing the actual shape and only using up, down, left, right and the numbers, for distance.

 

 

Partner B should only do what Partner A tells them to do, not interpret them or try to guess ahead. When finished they should compare the card to the screen and see how good the instructions were.

Was it easy to understand your partner’s instructions?  Why? Did they use the words ‘left’ and ‘right’?

Partners swap over and take a new card.

 

Plenary

Finish by recapping the language we have used today, what makes a good instruction and what an algorithm is.