Students in Kindergarten and first grade have been busy learning about the first steps of programming and coding through the use of Bee-Bot and ScratchJr.

In the MakerSpace, Kindergarten boys started to learn about the Bee-Bot by running relay races. During class the boys each created at least one oil pastel about a type of weather. The goal was for the teams to cheer for each boy who's turn it was to control the Bee-Bot. The mission was to program the BeeBot to do an attempted landing on one of the oil pastels.

In first grade, Mrs. Mayer taught a lesson on early coding using ScratchJr. The boys made the characters in their Spooky Forest come to life through programming. There was plenty of enthusiasm as the boys watched a frog jump and a snake slither just by applying a sequence of coding blocks to their story.

More about Bee-Bot: Bee-Bot and Blue-Bot are exciting new robots designed for use by young children. These colorful, easy-to-operate, and friendly little robots are a perfect tool for teaching sequencing, estimation, problem-solving, and just having fun!

More about ScratchJr: ScratchJr is an introductory programming language that enables young children (ages 5-7) to create their own interactive stories and games. Children snap together graphical programming blocks to make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. Children can modify characters in the paint editor, add their own voices and sounds, even insert photos of themselves -- then use the programming blocks to make their characters come to life. ScratchJr was inspired by the popular Scratch programming language (scratch.mit.edu), used by millions of young people (ages 8 and up) around the world.