This afternoon in the AT&T Classroom the Woodland second graders had a second coding lesson with the Hopscotch app. Building from last week’s work with Hopscotch, this afternoon the students explored new levels of the app to create increasingly more complex movements and animations. The app is designed to prompt students to think critically and creatively and provide opportunities through trial, error, and iteration for students to discover how to manipulate code. A recent article posted on the Educational Technology & Mobile Learning blog provides a very informative overview regarding the importance of introducing coding to young students.
The second graders also spent part of their afternoon focusing on literacy. During their time in the AT&T Classroom the second graders are using several digital tools that fit within the Daily 5 framework for literacy instruction that encompass the following authentic reading and writing formats: Read to Self, Work on Writing, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, and Word Work. Today in the AT&T Classroom the students were introduced to Scholastic’s Listen & Read website for Read to Self and Listen to Reading. Listen & Read is an interactive website designed for young readers. The site offers 15 free nonfiction books that include text for Read to Self and audio narration for Listen to Reading. The books cover topics related to community workers, animals, the US President. Each book includes a short quiz so that the reader can check their understanding when finished.
