Lesson 12: Until Loops in Maze
Overview
In this lesson, students will learn about until loops. Students will build programs that have the main character repeat actions until they reach their desired stopping point.
Purpose
This set of puzzles will work to solidify and build on the knowledge of loops by adding the until conditional. By pairing these concepts together, students will be able to explore the potential for creating complex and innovative programs.
Agenda
Warm Up (10 min)
Main Activity (30 min)
Wrap Up (15 min)
Extended Learning
View on Code Studio
Objectives
Students will be able to:
- Build programs with the understanding of multiple strategies to implement conditionals.
- Translate spoken language conditional statements and loops into a program.
Preparation
- Play through Course D Online Puzzles 2018 - Website to find any potential problem areas for your class.
- Review CS Fundamentals Main Activity Tips - Lesson Recommendations.
- Make sure every student has a Think Spot Journal - Reflection Journal.
Links
Heads Up! Please make a copy of any documents you plan to share with students.
For the Teachers
- Course D Online Puzzles 2018 - Website
- CS Fundamentals Main Activity Tips - Lesson Recommendations
For the Students
- Think Spot Journal - Reflection Journal
Vocabulary
- Condition - Something a program checks to see if it is true before allowing an action.
- Conditionals - Statements that only run under certain conditions.
- Loop - The action of doing something over and over again.
- Repeat - To do something again.
- Until - A command that tells you to do something only up to the point that something becomes true.
Support
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Teaching Guide
Warm Up (10 min)
Introduction
In this lesson, students will be creating loops that only run until a condition is true. Help the students understand how this works by leading them in group activities and having them do an action until some condition is true. For example: Have students touch their nose until you tell them to stop.
Preview of Online Puzzles
Pull up a puzzle from Course D Online Puzzles 2018 - Website, we recommend Puzzle 4.
- Ask the class what the bird should repeat to get to the pig.
- The bird should repeat
move forward,turn right,move forward, and thenturn left.
- The bird should repeat
- Ask the class what they can use to repeat this code.
- The bird should repeat this pattern until it reaches the pig.
Fill in the rest of the code using the repeat until loop and press Run. Discuss with the class why this worked.
Main Activity (30 min)
Course D Online Puzzles 2018 - Website
Bringing together concepts is not easy, but this set of lessons is meant to help students see the endless possibilities of coding when using conditions. If students struggle at all with understanding the similarities or differences between while loops and until loops, have them try to think of how they would use similar statements in their real lives.
Wrap Up (15 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?
- How do you feel about today's lesson?
- What's the difference between an
untilloop and awhileloop?
Extended Learning
Until Simon Says
Go out to a large playing field and have the students stand in a line facing you. Make sure every student can see you. Declare a couple of "until loops" such as:
- Until my right hand is raised up, you can walk toward me
- Until I say "eggplant", you can walk backwards in my direction
- Until I turn my head to the right, you have to walk like a crab
The first student to get to you wins. If there's time, let other students be "Simon" at the front of the class.
Student Instructions
Student Instructions
Take a close look at the code below. What do you think will happen when you click "Run"?
The bird will not move at all.
The bird will make it to the pig.
The bird will move forward and run into the TNT.
I don't know.
Student Instructions
Student Instructions
"Dear person. Me zombie. Me hungry. Must... get... to sunflower..."
Can you get the zombie to the sunflower using only the blocks that are available?
Student Instructions
Use the if block to help the zombie decide when to turn, then get the zombie to the sunflower.
Student Instructions
Help the zombie get to the sunflower.
Student Instructions
Help the zombie get to the sunflower.
Student Instructions
Help the zombie get to the sunflower.
Student Instructions
Challenge: Avoid the chompers and help the zombie get to the sunflower.
Student Instructions
Help the zombie get to the sunflower.
Student Instructions
Look carefully at the code below. What will happen after you click "Run"?
The zombie will turn right immediately and get stuck.
The zombie will make it to the sunflower.
The zombie will turn right on the first path and go around in circles forever.
I don't know.
Standards Alignment
View full course alignment
CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards (2017)
AP - Algorithms & Programming
- 1B-AP-11 - Decompose (break down) problems into smaller, manageable subproblems to facilitate the program development process.
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
- 3.L.6 - Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., After dinner that night we went looking for them).
SL - Speaking & Listening
- 3.SL.1 - Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 3 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
- 3.SL.3 - Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.
- 3.SL.6 - Speak in complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification.
Common Core Math Standards
MP - Math Practices
- MP.1 - Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
- MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively
- MP.4 - Model with mathematics
- 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
OA - Operations And Algebraic Thinking
- 3.OA.3 - Use multiplication and division within 100 to solve word problems in situations involving equal groups, arrays, and measurement quantities, e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.1
Next Generation Science Standards
ETS - Engineering in the Sciences
ETS1 - Engineering Design
- 3-5-ETS1-2 - Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.