The children are having a REALLY hard time counting the blocks in these puzzles because there is barely any contrast in color between the blocks. It is hard for them to see how many steps Laurel should take. Is there anyway to have the color of the blocks have more contrast or have a grid of lines around the blocks (or steps)
The puzzles in this lesson using the repeat blocks are pretty much the same as Course B (First Grade). The children are having a LOT of difficulty doing multi command repeat loops, like repeat 5 times. They might have an easier time being taught repeat loops more slowly. A thought is to start with puzzles that repeat 1 action multiple times like: repeat 3 times. I have approximately 220 Kindergarten students that I teach through a 6 day cycle and I would say only about 20% of the children are understanding the concept in these puzzles. They are getting frustrated. In addition, if a child solves a puzzle (like puzzle 5) correctly but did not use the repeat block, they are not able to continue.
Is anyone else seeing their students have difficulty with this lesson in Course A.
I’m glad to see that my students aren’t the only ones struggling with this issue. I put in a Contact Us-Feedback about this exact concern. My first graders can handle the multi-step looping in Course B fairly well, but my kindergarten students REALLY struggle with this. We’ve been working on lesson 9 for over a month now, and the kids are solving maybe 1 or 2 puzzles in a single class period, many with a lot of assistance from me. We pair program, so I usually have at least one student that sort of understands it, but not enough to keep it all running without my constant support. I did receive a fairly quick response when I put in my feedback through the Contact Us method, so you might want to try that as well.
Thank you for your response. I am a computer teacher so I had a talk with multiple Kindergarten teachers and they all agree that these puzzles are way above the abilities of most of their Kindergarten students. I may just cut my losses and move on. It does not help if they continually get frustrated and start not liking to code. It will be re-visited in First Grade.
At my school, I use Bee Bots for Kindergarten and wait till 1st grade to start code.org. Another district in MN does the same. The Bee Bots are a great way for kinders to start computational thinking and a great lead in for the next year when they start coding the online puzzles.