I teach in a “coding” school. This means all students in our school are expected to code. All students means my students too. I am always passionate about making sure my kids try and do what everyone else does. How can I fight for my students to be included if I’m not including them myself?
I have worked to bring different modalities of coding into my classroom. I’ve looked a lot into paperless coding and breaking down the steps to more simple tasks. I wanted to get my kids involved in coding while still working to hit their individual, specialized needs. When I saw Brook Brown from Teach Outside The Box post Hop-Scotch Coding, I felt like it was the solution I didn’t know I needed.
My school help an Epic Build day at the end of first quarter. I KNEW I had to get my kids ready, so we prepped Hop-Scotch code and practiced. Many times. When our Epic Build day came, my kids were ready and I am so excited to share some photos from our awesome project.
4 of my students had to work together to determine what the “special steps” of their code would be. If they disagreed, they needed to use their words to work it out. It was really fun to watch them work together and watch one boy (for the first time) take on a leadership role!
Getting the code from the table to the floor was the next tricky part. In this picture, she did not set the next piece the correct way. My little boy was able to walk over and tell her how to fix it. For a class that struggles with communication, this was HUGE!! Next came the fun part, going through the code. My kids got great practice with counting, and for students who didn’t understand the picture they had to decode to figure out what was expected at each square.
I was able to get my Speech Therapist and Occupational Therapist involved as well, which was exciting! The opportunities to use core vocabulary during a coding activity are endless. This was the perfect chance to get more practice in with using communication devices.
For some of my kids, it was difficult to physically navigate the code. This was a great challenge for them! We got great gross motor practice in and we targeted some of the same concepts that my class is learning during Adaptive PE.
This sweet boy LOVED the hop-scotch code. He even spontaneously requested to go through it again!
This activity has been such a success that my speech therapist and I are actually creating a coding corner in my classroom. Hop-Scotch Code is about to become a regular part of my classroom. Here’s to coding for all!