Lesson 19: Until Loops in Maze
55 minutes
Overview
In this skill-building lesson, students will learn about "until" loops. Students will build programs that have the main character repeat actions "until" they reach their desired stopping point.
Purpose
This set of puzzles will work to solidify and build on the knowledge of loops by adding the until conditional. By pairing these concepts together, students will be able to explore the potential for creating complex and innovative programs.
Standards
AP - Algorithms & Programming
- 1B-AP-10 - Create programs that include sequences, events, loops, and conditionals.
- 1B-AP-11 - Decompose (break down) problems into smaller, manageable subproblems to facilitate the program development process.
- 1B-AP-15 - Test and debug (identify and fix errors) a program or algorithm to ensure it runs as intended.
Agenda
Objectives
Students will be able to:
- Build programs with the understanding of multiple strategies to implement conditionals.
- Translate spoken language conditional statements and loops into a program.
Preparation
- Play through the puzzles to find any potential problem areas for your class.
Links
Heads Up! Please make a copy of any documents you plan to share with students.
For the teachers
- CSF - Express - Slides 2024-2025 - Slides (Download)
Vocabulary
- Condition - Something a program checks to see if it is true before allowing an action.
- Conditionals - Statements that only run under certain conditions.
- Loop - The action of doing something over and over again.
- Repeat - To do something again.
- Until - A command that tells you to do something only up to the point that something becomes true.
Teaching Guide
Warm Up (10 minutes)
Introduction
In this lesson, students will be creating loops that only run "until" a condition is true. Help the students understand how this works by leading them in group activities and having them do an action "until" some condition is true. For example: Have students touch their nose "until" you tell them to stop.
Display: Show “Reflect” slide
Reflect: Describe a time when you repeated an action until some condition was true.
Preview of Online Puzzles
Display: Show “Preview - Until Loops in Maze” slide.
Pull up a puzzle from today's Code Studio puzzles. We recommend Puzzle 4.
- Ask the class what the bird should repeat to get to the pig.
- The bird should repeat "move forward", "turn right", "move forward", and then "turn left".
- Ask the class what they can use to repeat this code.
- The bird should repeat this pattern until it reaches the pig.
Fill in the rest of the code using the "repeat until" loop and press "Run". Discuss with the class why this worked.
Vocabulary
Display: Show “Vocabulary” slide
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Condition - Something a program checks to see if it is true before allowing an action.
-
Conditionals - Statements that only run under certain conditions.
-
Loop - The action of doing something over and over again.
Display: Show “Vocabulary (continued)” slide
-
Repeat - To do something again.
-
Until - A command that tells you to do something only up to the point that something becomes true.
Main Activity (30 minutes)
Until Loops in Maze
Online Puzzles
Bringing together concepts is not easy, but this set of lessons is meant to help students see the endless possibilities of coding when using conditions. If students struggle at all with understanding the similarities or differences between "while" loops and "until" loops, have them try to think of how they would use similar statements in their real lives.
Display: Show “Level 1 - Skill Building” slide
Display: Show “Repeat Until Statements” video
Display: Show “Level 3 - Prediction” slide
Display: Show “Level 4-8 - Skill Building” slide
Display: Show “Level 11 - Prediction” slide
Lesson Extras
Display: Show “Lesson Extras" slide
Wrap Up (15 minutes)
Discussion
Display: Show “Discuss” slide
Remarks
There are endless possibilities of coding when using conditions.
Now think about how you would use statements with “while” and “until” in your real life.
Reflection
Display: Show “Reflect” slide
Reflect: - What's the difference between an "until" loop and a "while" loop?
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