The Pre-K cottage on the Bolles Lower School Whitehurst Campus was abuzz this week over a less on basic robotics and coding.

Bolles robotics coach and music teacher Beth Zerkowski has been working with the School’s youngest students in small group lessons using age-appropriate robotics technology to teach coding. She has used Cubelets, Ozobots, Bluebots and Bee-Bots, which are always a hit.  Bee-Bots are small yellow and black striped robots that are great tools for teaching sequencing, estimation, problem-solving and, in students’ minds, fun! The bee robot helps foster an understanding of coding and computational thinking and can remember sequences of up to 40 commands that students can punch in themselves. The Bee-Bot then follows commands on an alphabet board, which also helps reinforce students’ familiarity with letters, colors and spaces.

In previous lessons, Zerkowski has guided students through the process of computational thinking as a group. Today was the first day students had the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of robotics coding by working independently to solve challenges. It was a successful formula, with Pre-K students looking confident and proud of their work.

Keep B-ing awesome, Bulldogs! The lessons and innovation you are learning now will serve you well in life!