Dum du dum du dum dum………… Yes, you should be afraid-very afraid!!!!! The CRAZY X-terminator crashed our Target class today. We were trying to peacefully learn about variables and solving equations, and then, in came the X-terminator! Wildly getting rid of x’s everywhere. Armed with pest spray bottle and fly swatter this frightening character sent us all under our desks with fear. However, we quickly learned that getting rid of some x’s in an algebra problem is a great way to simplify the equation. We ended up using the X-terminators strategy to learn our first legal move in Hands On Equations. A legal move is a movement of pieces on the balance that simplifies the equation while making sure both sides of the balance stay equal. Thankfully, the CRAZY X-terminator left the room and the only casualties were the poor blue pawns, which found themselves scattered everywhere.
Once everything was safe, brave spy kids crawled out from under their desks to once again tackle their coding and programming missions. It was just in the nick of time, because we could feel our time machine slipping farther and farther into the “between world.” The spy kids have no time to waste if they want to repair the broken time machine and return to the present before cosmic rays inflict their disastrous damage. So with no time to spare, it was on to coding.
The focus in coding was using loops to make their work more efficient. The objectives for the lesson were:
- Identify the benefits of using a loop structure instead of manual repetition
- Create a program for a given task which loops a single command
- Break down a long sequence of instructions into the smallest repeatable sequence possible
- Create a program for a given task which loops a sequence of commands
- Employ a combination of sequential and looped commands to reach the end of a maze
Students them moved on to programming their Recon Rovers. We completed two missions in class today. In Mission 2: Messaging Protocol, students learned how to program their robot to introduce itself. Then, we moved to Mission 3 which was Night Surveillance. In this mission students programmed the rover to use LED headlights to navigate in a dark room. Their programming is becoming more complex, and only one more basic training mission remains before they begin advanced technical operations.
3rd Grade Target Tally- Download Target Tally-2-3
P.S. A quick note about students who are absent. This is a difficult unit to make up work at home because most of what we are doing is hands-on programming and coding. If your child misses a day, he or she can see the math lesson that was missed on the Office 365 video section. Directions for accessing the HOE videos from Office 365 can be found on the HOE page of the blog. If your child misses a day, he or she will need to come to school early a couple days to complete the programming assignment(s) we did in class. This is for your child's benefit so that there are no gaps or holes in his or her ability to program the robots. All of these skills build, and the programming becomes very difficult if a student gets behind.