Today we had our first Coding Club meeting at Dunbar Primary. I was a little leary of coding with kindergarteners, first and second graders (yikes!), but it couldn’t have gone better! Here are ten great things about coding club:

1. Code.org has all of the information that you need to get started.
2. You can set up your classroom in advance and print student login cards.
3. Start out the first session with a snack and the uplugged activity.      
4. Kids learn great vocabulary words like algorithm.
5. Young children can log in with a secret word or with a picture password.
6. Have several teachers/mentors available for the first session. We had a 6 to 1 student to mentor ratio.
7. Students immediately began making connections between the process and the outcomes.
8. Kids can work at their own pace or collaborate with each other to problem-solve.
9. They can work on any computers or devices.
10. They can’t wait until next week for the next coding club!
11. (Bonus!) Parents were impressed and excited.