Apart from the everyday use of technology, our teachers at Siġġiewi Primary have participated in two major initiatives aimed at introducing our pupils to coding: Europe Code Week and Hour of Code.
Europe Code Week, in October, is an initiative which aims to bring coding and digital literacy to everybody in a fun and engaging way. We got involved with two events, one for the year 5 classes and another one for the year six classes.
Year 5 pupils used their tablets and were introduced to Scratch Jr which is a coding application for young children. Pupils were given a set of tasks to complete where they had to create scenes, add characters (sprites) to backgrounds and program these using blocks.
Year 6 pupils were introduced to Lego WeDo2 where they had to construct a robot (Milo the Science Rover) and program it to move, play sounds and change colours of the LED bulb on the robot. The Lego WeDo2 software installed on the teachers’ and LSAs’ laptops was connected to the robot’s smart hub via Bluetooth. Using the software’s blocks pupils programmed their robot and were given time to change the parameters of the program and discover other features of the software.
In December we have organised coding events for all classes, from kindergarten to year 6, and joined millions of students from around the world in this initiative.
Kevin Grima
IT Support Teacher
St Ignatius College, Patri Ġużè Delia, Siġġiewi Primary 