The 6-week course will have no more than 8 children in. You and your child will have your own Bee Bot to use for the full 45 minute session. The bee bot will operate on a special mat on the floor, which is also for the sole use of you and your child. Through the course coding cards will be introduced to allow your child to “write” code. Again, you and your child will have your own set to use each session. 

There will be opportunity to learn for your child to collaborate with others in the course. Being in the same space as other children tackling the same challenges can help them to learn from each other. Particularly when solving problems, children can be inspired by others approaches to help them reach a solution. 

Coding is now part of the national curriculum from key stage 1 onwards. That’s because it’s recognised that coding brings many benefits for children beyond the obvious desirable skill in a future job market. 

Learning to code will help your pre-schooler with:

1. Concentration – coding gives children an enjoyable focus, not wanting to stop until the problem is solved. 

2. Problem solving – coding requires creativity in the sense that the programmer needs to create a possible solution. Often there is more than one way to solve a problem and the same is true for coding. 

3. Perseverance – coding allows us to rethink failure as a bad thing, in fact it’s essential in the process of getting the code right. We might call it trial and error. This skill will be hugely important in later life. 

4. Logical thinking – we use logic every day without realising it. I need to buy some apples for a picnic so I will go to the shop. If the shop has no apples, I will buy some pears. What about more challenging problems though? They require logical thinking where we break the problem down into components. Coding helps children to think about the task as it’s components; move forward 2 spaces, turn right, move forwards 1 space. These are the components of the task move to the shop, for example. 

5. Maths – the concepts of maths can seem abstract to some children. The logical thinking that coding develops allows children to learn maths as they code. 

6. Understanding algorithms – An algorithm is a bit like a recipe. It’s a set of instructions that are very clear and specific, such that, when repeated the results are identical. 

7. Communication – coding gives children the opportunity to discuss with their peer / grown up how they plan to solve the problem, explaining a solution, or asking for help. 

Our coding course for pre-schoolers is completely screen free! It follows Dinky’s core values of being totally hands on. So, you can expect to find a real robot with actual buttons on it that allows you to program it. As the children work through the course, we will introduce the concept of “writing” code. This will be done with a series of coding cards – picture-based instructions that the children can use to create their algorithms. No screens and no dependency on reading skills. 

Each session will have a theme, maybe a nursery rhyme or a story. Activities and challenges will be through play based on our theme. For example, in one session the bee bot is dressed as the crocodile from the song “5 cheeky monkeys sitting in a tree”. The children need to work out how to get the crocodile to “snap” the monkeys by coding them to move to the monkeys. 

There will also be other resources used to broaden the play and help the children to engage. In an early session children will be invited to build their bee bot a home out of duplo or wooden blocks. This will help with the feeling of ownership when we come to program the bee bots to go home. 

As with all Dinky’s sessions this coding course will be child-centred, meaning that if the child chooses to explore their bee bot in a different, yet safe way, that is fine. 

In fact, the first session of the course allows lots of time for children to figure out how to use Bee Bot for themselves. At Dinky we know that this is valuable time for children to build their own experiences and learn through tests or experiments that they think up. Of course I will be on hand to help and guide whenever needed. 

The 6 weeks will take your child from having no experience with coding, all the way through to “writing” a code using picture cards, programming the bee bot to perform their code and even debugging when the code doesn’t work as expected.

The sessions are planned in such a way that children who get the concept early on can be stretched with further challenges.