Tag Archives: Bee Bots

Coding with Bee Bots

The kindergarteners were introduced to Bee-Bots today.

Bee-Bots are easy-to-operate and friendly little robots that are a perfect tool for teaching sequencing, estimation, and problem-solving. (https://www.bee-bot.us/)

Here are the commands the Bee-Bots can follow.

Today, students chose a letter card and then had to create a code for the Bee-Bot to follow to get to a picture on the mat that began with that particular letter.

Here is a video that shows the activity in action.

Now that the students have been introduced to Bee-Bots, they will use these fun coding robots to practice identifying rhyming pairs, reading CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, solving math equations and more! In a few weeks, the kindergarteners will begin to develop their own Bee-Bot mat with their Third Grade Buddy during out STEM Buddy Program. Stay tuned!

STEM Buddies Update

The third grade and kindergarten STEM Buddies have been meeting weekly for the past month to work on creating Bee-Bot mats. Some of the themes include colors, pet vs. wild animal, living vs. nonliving, and number recognition. The progress is exciting!

The mats and game pieces are almost complete. Students will present their mats when we return from break.

STEM Buddies

Kindergarten and Third Graders had their weekly STEM Buddies meeting yesterday, and boy was it a fun one! Students were introduced to their first buddy challenge of the year: to create a mat for Bee Bots! The students’ eyes were wide with excitement. To make the project more concrete, I created a plan to guide the students through the activity:

We brainstormed the topics and skills together. Here are some of the students’ ideas:

Next, students found their buddy and got right to work thinking, planning, and designing.

Work will continue on these Bee-Bot games over the next few weeks. I can’t wait to see what the students create!

Friday Fun, Fun, Fun!

Students were thrilled to hear that we would be practicing beginning coding skills using the Bee-Bots. They have been eagerly awaiting a chance to get their hands on these coding robots.  We explored the ways to make the Bee Bots go and practiced programming them. Then I introduced them to a rhyming game. The goal was for students to choose a card, identify the picture, and find a picture on the mat that rhymes. So we practicing rhyming AND coding! (and patience too, of course!)

Students also used their sense of sight to look through different kalideiscopes.

They then made binoculars using patterned duct tape, yarn, and toilet paper rolls.

 

Of course we had to take the binoculars outside and test them out!