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Lesson 7: Programming with Harvester

Overview

Students will apply the programming concepts that they have learned to the Harvester environment. Now, instead of just getting the character to a goal, students have to collect corn using a new block. Students will continue to develop sequential algorithm skills and start using the debugging process.

Purpose

In this lesson, students will develop debugging skills and will continue developing their programming skills.

Agenda

Warm Up (5 min)

Main Activity (30 min)

Wrap Up (5 - 10 min)

View on Code Studio

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • Translate movements into a series of commands.
  • Identify and locate bugs in a program.

Preparation

Links

Heads Up! Please make a copy of any documents you plan to share with students.

For the Teachers

For the Students

Vocabulary

  • Algorithm - A list of steps to finish a task.
  • Bug - Part of a program that does not work correctly.
  • Debugging - Finding and fixing problems in an algorithm or program.
  • Program - An algorithm that has been coded into something that can be run by a machine.
  • Programming - The art of creating a program.

Support

Report a Bug

Teaching Guide

Warm Up (5 min)

Review Debugging, Persistence, and Frustration

This lesson includes several debugging puzzles, making it very important that students recall the ideas that they learned in the "Unspotted Bugs" and "Stevie and the Big Project" storybooks earlier in the course. Make sure you review the vocabulary from those books (debugging, persistence, and frustration) before you move on to this set of puzzles.

Discuss: Ask students to recall the steps of debugging.

  • Was everything right at the first step?
  • How about the second?
  • Where did it go wrong?
  • What does that tell you?

Quickly revisit pages from "Stevie and the Big Project" to remind them of the storyline and encourage students to remember tips to help them out when they are feeling frustrated:

  • Count to 10
  • Take deep breaths
  • Journal about them
  • Talk to a partner about them
  • Ask for help

Don't forget to be persistent!

Transition: Once you are satisfied that your students remember "Happy Maps" and "Unspotted Bugs", you can move into the Main Activity.

Main Activity (30 min)

At this point, students should already be familiar with the programming environment. Some new things to look out for in this lesson are confusion about the debugging process or not remembering to use the pick corn block when the harvester reaches corn.

Course A Online Puzzles 2018 - Website

Teacher Tip:

Show the students the right way to help classmates by:

  • Don't sit in their chair
  • Don't use their keyboard
  • Don't touch their mouse
  • Make sure the classmate can describe the solution before you walk away

Circulate: During online activities, the role of the teacher is primarily one of encouragement and support. In addition to the ideas listed in the last lesson, some more ideas on how to do this are:

  • Remind students to use the debugging process before you approach.
  • Have students describe the problem that they’re seeing. What is it supposed to do? What does it do? What does that tell you?
  • Remind frustrated students that frustration is a step on the path to learning, and that persistence will pay off.
  • If a student is still stuck after all of this, ask leading questions to get the student to spot an error on their own.

Transition: Have students grab their Thinkspot Journals and take a moment to leave lessons for themselves.

Wrap Up (5 - 10 min)

Journaling

Having students write about what they learned, why it’s useful, and how they feel about it can help solidify any knowledge they obtained today and build a review sheet for them to look to in the future.

Journal Prompts:

  • What was today’s lesson about?
  • Draw one of the Feeling Faces - Emotion Images that shows how you felt about today's lesson in the corner of your journal page.
  • Draw a time you found a bug in your code.

Standards Alignment

View full course alignment

CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards (2017)

AP - Algorithms & Programming
  • 1A-AP-09 - Model the way programs store and manipulate data by using numbers or other symbols to represent information.
  • 1A-AP-11 - Decompose (break down) the steps needed to solve a problem into a precise sequence of instructions.

Cross-curricular Opportunities

This list represents opportunities in this lesson to support standards in other content areas.

Common Core English Language Arts Standards

L - Language
  • K.L.6 - Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to texts.
SL - Speaking & Listening
  • K.SL.1 - Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
  • K.SL.2 - Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details and requesting clarification if something is not understood.
  • K.SL.5 - Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions as desired to provide additional detail.

Common Core Math Standards

G - Geometry
  • K.G.1 - Describe objects in the environment using names of shapes, and describe the relative positions of these objects using terms such as above, below, beside, in front of, behind, and next to.
MP - Math Practices
  • MP.1 - Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively
  • MP.5 - Use appropriate tools strategically
  • MP.6 - Attend to precision
  • MP.7 - Look for and make use of structure
  • MP.8 - Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

Next Generation Science Standards

ETS - Engineering in the Sciences
ETS1 - Engineering Design
  • K-2-ETS1-1 - Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.
  • K-2-ETS1-2 - Develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem.