Hour of Code - Coding? Me?

Happy December everyone!
The school year is almost half over!
I just can't believe it!

Well I wanted to share something that I am working on for my 4th and 5th graders next week.  Have you hear that schools are being invited to teach one hour of computer coding sometime next week (Dec. 8th - 12th)?  They hope to get 10 millions kids coding next week.  WOW!  You ask what is coding?  Coding helps us to make apps, games, websites, video games, software...... which is the future of jobs of many of our students.

 So next week I was selected to teach coding to my 4th and 5th graders which is going to be taped for a State of the School video.  There is an awesome website code.org which has tons of really cool step by step tutorials that even kindergarteners can use. 

On my Google Classroom that I have set up for each of my classes, I linked a few of the tutorials such as Frozen for the girls, Angry Birds for the boys, Flappy Code where the students can design a game using the Angry Birds game.  I even found a website (Made With Code) where they can program the Christmas lights on outside trees of the White House which will be aired on YouTube.  Cool right?

After going over the basic vocabulary and previewing the websites with the entire class I will let them loose to explore and have fun. 

For some of my students who have a little more computer knowledge I added the Kahn Academy tutorial which is a step by step tutorial that is a bit more challenging. 

They even have non-computer lessons which teaches the students to use a "code" that another student follows to recreate a pattern on a 4 x 4 graph or cups that represent the "code" that move a student robot to do certain things.  The kids are going to love it! 

 Is your school doing the Hour of Code?  Are you doing an Hour of Code in your classrooms?  If so, how are you presenting it to your students?  Please leave a comment or two I love to hear from everybody!