Lesson 9: Loops in Ice Age

Model: Ask for a volunteer and have them stand.

• Instruct your volunteer to walk around the table (or their chair, or a friend).
• When they finish, instruct them to do it again, using the exact same words you did before.
• When they finish, instruct again.
• Then again.

Prompt: Would it have been easier for me to just ask you to go around the table four times?

Think: What if I wanted you to do it ten times? How would you reword my instructions so that they were more efficient and I didn't have to repeat myself so much? Feel free to write your instructions down on a piece of scrap paper.

Share: Ask a few students to share their instructions with the class, pointing out how each approach has simplified the overall approach to giving instructions.

Say: Today we're going to work on finding ways to make giving lots of instructions easier, especially when those instructions repeat themselves a lot.

Preview Loops in Ice Age

To finish the connection, preview an online puzzle (or two) as a class.

Model: Reveal an entire online puzzle from the progression to come. We recommend Puzzle 5. Point out the "Play Area" with Scrat and the acorn, as well as the "Work Space" with the Blockly code. Explain that this Blockly code is now the language that the class will be using to help Scrat get to the acorn. Do students see any similarities to the exercise that they just did? What are the big differences?

Work with your class to drag code into the workspace in such a way that Scrat (eventually) gets to the acorn.

Transition: Students should now be ready to transition to computers to complete online puzzles on their own.

As students work through the puzzles, see if they can figure out how many blocks they use with a loop vs. without a loop.

Show the students the right way to help classmates by:

• Don’t sit in the classmate’s chair.
• Don’t use the classmate’s keyboard.
• Don’t touch the classmate’s mouse.
• Make sure the classmate can describe the solution to you out loud before you walk away

Circulate: Teachers play a vital role in computer science education and supporting a collaborative and vibrant classroom environment. During online activities, the role of the teacher is primarily one of encouragement and support. Online lessons are meant to be student-centered, so teachers should avoid stepping in when students get stuck. Some ideas on how to do this are:

• Utilize *Pause and Think Online Video whenever possible.
• Encourage students with questions/challenges to start by asking their partner.
• Unanswered questions can be escalated to a nearby group, who might already know the solution.
• Remind students to use the debugging process before you approach.
• Have students describe the problem that they’re seeing. What is it supposed to do? What does it do? What does that tell you?
• Remind frustrated students that frustration is a step on the path to learning, and that persistence will pay off.
• If a student is still stuck after all of this, ask leading questions to get the student to spot an error on their own.

Prompts:

• What was today’s lesson about?
• Draw your own maze with Scrat trying to get to an acorn. Will loops help you solve it?
• Draw yourself using a loop to do an everyday activity, like brushing your teeth.

Use these activities to enhance student learning. They can be used as outside of class activities or other enrichment.

So Moving

• Give the students pictures of actions or dance moves that they can do.
  • Have students arrange moves and add loops to choreograph their own dance.
• Share the dances with the rest of the class.

Connect It Back

• Find some YouTube videos of popular dances that repeat themselves.
• Can your class find the loops?
• Try the same thing with songs!