Kids Who Code Code-a-thon

Our latest project based learning has focused on planning and preparing for hosting our own unique Hour of Code event. On Friday, December 12th our class co-hosted the Kids Who Code Code-a-thon with Mrs. Caldwell's Kindergarten class at Oak Lake Community School. After preparing for this event over the last few weeks, my Grade 2s were very excited to lead their coding activities and share their coding expertise. I was incredibly proud of my students as I watched them teach other (younger and older) students and community members about coding. Each group of 2-3 students from our class ran a station for the event, which featured tools such as Tynker, Code Monkey, Kodable, Hopscotch, Daisy the Dinosaur, Lightbot , Kodu & Scratch Jr.

Over 150 students were involved in the event, yet the school gym was often quiet as engaged learners tackled computer programming challenges using a variety of kid-friendly coding tools. Cheers of "I got it" and comments such as "this is cool" were reassurance that coders were having an exciting and positive experience despite the quiet, focused atmosphere.

We had great support from our communities, which we are very thankful for. Several special guests, including representatives from our school divisions, our local government and the local junior hockey team, were in attendance. Microsoft in Education Canada also supported us as Expert Educator Fellows, which we greatly appreciate. Five pre-service teachers from the Brandon University Faculty of Education volunteered to help with the event and we also had parent volunteers. We are really excited about the success of this inaugural event and we've already starting talking about what's next...