Within this resource, learners will work in groups of four, use their mathematical skills and scientific knowledge to help plan for an expedition to the Antarctic in 3 sessions.  They will consider the appropriate clothing, food and other essential equipment they will need to take with them.  Learners will also use...

In this activity, children work in pairs to learn and set each other challenges using the Rapid Router software.

The challenges include the use of Loop, If and Repeat Until commands, asking children to consider how they can automate a process and create efficient code. The activities focus on driving a...

In this, the final activity of a sequence of eight, children are asked to use their knowledge to create a challenge using Rapid Router, solvable using Python. It will ask their partner to use procedures, increment variables and apply different methods of control flow.

The resource includes an overview of...

Lesson 8 in a series of lessons using Rapid Router, the game-like environment for learning programming. This session takes loops and repetition further, and includes reusing statements and nested loops.

The resource includes wall displays, worksheets, model answers and assessment sheets.

The 5th lesson in the Rapid Router series adds complexity to algorithms, raising the level of challenge and building on familiar contexts from earlier activities.

Also included are wall displays, teacher and peer assessment sheets, worksheets and model solutions.

This extension activity features in the upper-primary Blockly course, by the Rapid Router team at Code for Life. It explores the limits of generalised solutions, introducing children to the idea of algorithm testing and debugging. Children are asked to apply logical thinking to different problems, and analyse what...

This activity makes the leap from Blockly to Python programming. The 'grocery van driving challenge' is reduced from previous lessons to allow students to concentrate on syntax and correct coding using a limited set of instructions. Matching of Blockly and Python code is encouraged to assist the transition.

In the 4th lesson of a series for lower primary school computing, children use the online Rapid Router environment to learn more about algorithms. They learn that there can be more than one algorithm to achieve the same outcome, and that these can be selected according to efficiency. They further debug sequences in...

This Rapid Router lesson uses the Blockly language to develop ideas about selection, repetition, and conditionals. Children progress from specific instructions to spot patterns that can be made into generalised solutions. This important step helps learning about abstraction and pattern generalisation, two...

This activity in the Rapid Router series takes children further in their transition to text-based programming in Python.

By creating Blockly programs and comparing them to the automatically-generated Python code, children are encouraged to identify code which matches. The complexity of the problems is...

This lesson, in the Blockly Rapid Router series, challenges children to create their own maps which are then offered to classmates to solve. Creating the maps requires logical...

This lesson recaps some of the learning from the Key Stage One Blockly course on Rapid Router. It touches on repetition in programs, and requires children to create an algorithm challenge that requires loops to solve it efficiently. The challenges are in the context of programming a groceries delivery van.

This activity follows-on from previous exercises using the Blockly editor on the Rapid Router website. It reviews what the children have learned before they proceed to using text-based programming.

The exercise looks at the most advanced ideas used with the Blockly-based phase of the Rapid Router scheme,...

In this activity, involving on-screen programming using Rapid Router, children will develop their understanding of programming principles by learning how to use repeat loops, if statements and respond to changes in variables in a visual programming language.

The activities focus on driving a delivery van...

This activity goes further into Python programming by expanding the range of repetition and selection commands used. Students also practice debugging of code.

Variables are explained before making use of incremented variables to solve challenges in Python.

Other programming practices, including...