Just Starting Out

CS Fundamentals Course A - F Course A
1

Greetings!

I am just jumping into coding with my primary aged students. I have one major question:

  1. Which course should I start with (I have separate groups of first and second graders)?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated…Thanks in advance!

Jennifer

2

Jennifer,
I would start the 1st graders on course B and the 2nd graders on course C.
If they need to all be on the same course, then put them all on Course B.
Eileen

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3

Thank you so much for responding! It may not be necessary for them all to be on the same lesson. I will take your suggestion under advisement. I am super new to this, so any information (best practices) is greatly appreciated.

4

This is the best page for grades K-5 teachers to start with:
https://code.org/educate/curriculum/elementary-school

  1. Click the “Find a Workshop” button and attend a one day workshop in your area! Great PD! You’ll learn everything you need to know!
  2. Click on the “Curriculum Guide for Courses A-F” and read the first 28 pages when you have time.
  3. Scroll down to Courses A-F and click the yellow “Lesson Plans” button under Course B.

I always show the students the “Pair Programming” video (Course B - Lesson 4) and we discuss it. They learn to work together with 2 students on one computer. When they start working the online coding puzzles in Lesson 4, they work together as a team. It’s awesome! Have fun!

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Hello,
I’m a media specialist and see students once a week for 30 mins. I teacher grades K-5, 3 or 4 sections for each grade level. Since this is the first year for these students to get any exposure to coding, I’m wondering where I should start for each grade. I see you suggested to start K-2 students at the A, B, and C levels, I can also see that 5th grade could do the fundamentals express course with my 5th graders since I will only have them for one year. But what about the 3rd and 4th graders? I will use the code.org curriculum for the next 2 and 3 years respectively. Where should I start with them?

Looking forward to your suggestions,
Thomas

6

Hi Thomas,

If they haven’t had any coding experience you might want to start the 3rd and 4th graders in course D - targeted to 3rd grade. There are some ramp up lessons at the beginning to make it easier for students who have never done coding.

But, honestly, my favorite course is course C. It’s targeted for 2nd grade but I think grades 2-4 would do well with it. This would make things easier for you since grades 2-4 would do the same online puzzles and you could teach the same “unplugged” lessons to each of these grades too. That way you will teach the same lesson many times - less prep - and each time you teach it the lesson gets better. The 4th graders will move through the lessons more quickly and maybe they will get to start course D at some point during the year.

Your idea of having the 5 graders do the express course is good! And, as you said, K should do course A and grade 1 should do course B.

You won’t go wrong whichever way you decide to do it. The kids are going to love it!

Let me know how else I can help. And please let me know what you decide and how it goes! What school are you at by the way?

Eileen

Ps. There have been some updates to the courses and lessons. These updates were just put into effect on August 1st I believe. So I haven’t taught the courses with the updates yet. It’s possible that, with the changes, I may love courses D and E as much as course C! :slight_smile:

You can also do the prescribed course allocation as follows:

K - A

1 - B

2 - C

3 - D

4 - E

5 - F

Some more ramp up lessons have been added to the front of courses E & F so theoretically 4th and 5th graders with no experience could start at these levels. But if you want to take it easier you can lump 2-4 and do course C first!