Inspired by Sweden

After our trip to Sweden and learning about how to incorporate and use technology in a balanced way, we turned on how to implement what we learned.

So far we have used a tablet to explore and present topics, explore music and find educative videos but we needed more child interactive approach. We turned to parents for help and support.

One family brought for us to use and explore a robot caterpillar "Codeapillar" which children were able to program easily with the process of assembling. Each segment has a specific code/task and as the caterpillar starts it performs the tasks in the order the segments were placed.

Children greatly enjoyed giving the coding process by giving the caterpillar different tasks as well as creating polygons for it to pass.

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One mother brought a Lego crocodile robot that could be programmed to move, open and close its jaws and make sounds. They first assembled the crocodile and then proceeded with exploring what kind of tasks they can have him make and how to use the laptop for programming.

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One father wanted to share and show children how electric motors work. He made experiments with magnetism and creating magnet motors using a simple battery and wire as well as presented electric motors and most common tech gadgets and toys we encounter them in.

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We also wanted to apply a bit more than just technology aspect.

We discovered, during our stay in Sweden that they use noise measuring devices that warn students and staff of the environment being too loud for comfort. The devices would indicate with red light if the noise was too loud and green/absence of light if the noise was fine. We decided to make with children a red light /green light box as well as to find devices they could use to indicate to their friends if the environment is too noisy for comfort.

We also noticed that their classrooms in kindergartens in Sweden are more open and less cluttered so we reorganized one of our rooms to provide a more opened space for children to use freely.

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