When reviewing the upcoming TEKs for 1st Grade Science I noticed that they had "Demonstrate and record the ways that objects can move such as in a straight line, zig zag, up and down, back and forth, round and round, and fast and slow" in their Scope and Sequence. Immediately I barged into both of my 1st Grade teacher's classroom and told them that this would be an incredible way to integrate robotics into our curriculum! They werent too sure what that meant just yet, but they said they were on board! I then went to the Admin Office to pick up a robot called "Ozobot." When using Ozobot, students draw lines / shapes and the robot will "drive" around the trace of the line. When I went into planning with my teacher, we talked about whether we should use whiteboards, manila paper or regular paper to draw the lines on. However, my teacher had this awesome idea in which she suggested using Explain Everything to draw the lines/zigzags. We tested it and sure enough it worked!
So today, we rolled Ozobot with our First Graders! We explained to them the concept of zig zag lines, straight lines, etc. The teacher then told them to create a total of 4 slides- each slide was supposed to represent a different type of line / design. When students were ready, they raised their hand and we would come and test the Ozobot with their design. If the robot "liked" their design, it would go in a continuous loop. If it didnt like the shape then the robot would go in random directions. When their design didnt work, it was fun to see them "debug" it by them re-designing the shape. All in all it was so much fun and the students absolutely enjoyed it!
No comments:
Post a Comment