Fun times!

Redesigning our fun

Although I wrote about the Python side of today’s session at Code Club, it’s worth talking about everything else. Since we’d had the couple of weeks off, we took this opportunity to take a breath and look at how we could get everyone excited again, and improve a few components.

A few observations from previous Code Club sessions this year:

• It worked better when we used our round tables for Python, rather than last year’s outward facing seating
• We ultimately wanted people to offer enough activities that kids could choose - People seemed more focussed when we had defined areas in our open plan set up for each activity
• People seemed more comfortable when they could see what others were doing, and not feel tethered to only one

What we did today

Today was set up like this:

• We worked together on Python (Python Challenge and Code Club activities) at a block of stand up tables
• Nearby, in the middle of the space, we had Spheros running through a huge made made of icy pole sticks..and sometimes all over the place too!
• People were designing on TinkerCAD and we looked at each other’s 3d creations, and printed something
• Scratch projects were still progressing, and people could shift between activities so they got a more varied experience
• We talked about the upcoming STEM and Scratch video game competitions

Although we were down a volunteer and a teacher this week, something about the excitement and choices actually seemed to make things seem more relaxed, more exciting, and actually quite a bit better focussed too.