This Barefoot Computing activity for upper primary goes deeper into the concept of algorithms, using logical reasoning and debugging to find errors and to improve accuracy and efficiency. By following instructions, children create diagrams constructed from simple shapes. They are asked to identify errors in the...

This resource contains a series of interactive spreadsheets designed to demonstrate various teaching points and to provide practice in 2D and 3D shapes and their properties at primary level. They are:

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In this activity, part of a group of Python inspired resources,  students will learn how to write a Python program telling people all about you.

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This short activity for primary school computing uses art to introduce the concept of abstraction. During a ‘guess what’ game the children are asked to represent a word on a card using drawing or modelling – in doing so they unconsciously concentrate on just the most important aspects of the idea they are...

Students often find it difficult to understand the related concepts of acceleration and speed. Making use of the BBC micro:bit on-board accelerometer, this playful activity allows students to get an intuitive understanding through hands-on activity.

The simple game requires that students maintain...

This cross-curricular computing / ICT activity helps children to understand decomposition. They choose a poem and create an animation using Scratch; this encourages them to think deeply about the poem, and to explore the tools available. Children break the poem into pieces (decomposition), then plan the animation...

This activity, available in three different programming languages, requires students to ‘dry run’ written code and work out what it does. This is a useful skill for programming, which tests their understanding of assignment and subsequent changes to variables within programs. They step through code and analyse the...

This activity includes a game-based approach to measuring reaction speed. Fast reflexes are vital to astronauts who may need to deal with rapidly escalating incidents and high-speed projectiles.

The effect of distraction on reaction speed is investigated – students collect multiple readings and take averages...

In this resource learners will use Scratch, to debug and then improve a program to move Autosub6000 around the ocean floor, photographing samples found.   The remote movement will be controlled through a keyboard’s arrow keys initially and then the children will be challenged to create a program which will move...

This lesson or enrichment activity investigates recursive algorithms using Fibonacci series.

It begins with an engaging maths magic trick ‘how to fake a super brain’ that uses a special property of Fibonacci numbers, and proceeds to look at the Golden Ratio in nature and its ‘beautiful’ properties.

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This activity for younger children introduces algorithms and algorithmic thinking. After first planning how to draw numbers using the simple commands available, children then program a BeeBot to create the shapes (BeeBots are a type of simple programmable rover). By watching and feeding back on each other's efforts...

This introduction to using the small programmable robot, the BeeBot, introduces children to creating simple programs. They learn the importance of sequences of accurate instructions, and test their sequences out using a 'fakebot' or paper-robot. Children are encouraged to debug and develop their sequences before...

For lower-primary children with some understanding of algorithms, this Barefoot Computing activity uses a basic robot (BeeBot) to show how algorithms are executed as stored programs on digital devices. Simple sequences of instructions are given to the BeeBot to 'write' numbers. These algorithms are represented by...

This resource introduces binary data to students via the creation of bracelets which display their name in binary. This lesson helps to demonstrate how it is possible to take something that we know and translate it into a series of ons and offs (ones or zeroes). The resource contains a lesson plan and related...