To follow up on last week’s Hour of Code, I challenged the 2nd graders to design ant farms using the Hopscotch app. I didn’t give them a lot of parameters, and I was happy to see that each group approached it in a completely different way. Some tried to be realistic, while others were more interested in creativity. The conversations I heard while they worked together were serious and full of technical coding jargon (“Should we use the x-axis or y-axis?” “How many degrees should we put for the turn?”). Most people listening would not think these were second graders!
When time was up, the students shared what they had done so far by using Reflector to mirror their iPads on our big screen.
Here is a link to a new Hopscotch tutorial on making a snowflake in case any of the students want to try it at home.
We also did some more research, comparing ants to other bugs. The students got to select the bugs they wanted to research, which ranged from cicadas to the Black Widow Spider.
We ended class with a creative activity, where the students could design their own holidays by combining two other holidays. The details were amazing in their drawings (a turkey with a jetpack!) and we had fun sharing them.