Warm Up (5 - 10 min)

Introduction

At this point, students have only used loops in the Maze puzzles. Those puzzles focused on looping movement instructions. This stage will use loops to pick up multiple items in the same spot.

Ask:

• What are some other elements of our programs that could benefit from loops?
• Harvester puzzles can have lots of items in one spot. How can we use loops to pick up any number of them with just two blocks?

Main Activity (30 min)

Online Puzzles

When students are using loops to repeat an action (such as harvesting pumpkins), encourage them to think about the movements before and after that action. Could those actions be brought into the loop as well?

Wrap Up (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?
• How did you feel during today’s lesson?
• Give two examples of when you used loops in your code.
• What else could a farmer harvest? Draw the code block that you would need to harvest that item.

Extended Activity

Use these activities to enhance student learning. They can be used as outside of class activities or other enrichment.

Harvesting Supplies

• Let students create piles of school supplies at their desks (pencils, erasers, etc.)
• Have their partners figure out how a harvester would walk from pile to pile, collecting each group of items along the way.
• Share the programs with the rest of the class.