Here are some activities that students from all grades can participate in.
Appropriate for Middle School (using laptop):
Khan Academy offers a multi-hour, self-paced curriculum in JavaScript and lessons in HTML / CSS as well as SQL (language for databases) for students to learn various forms of programming. For Hour of Code, we've created special introductory curricula to get your students started!
This year pick from or have your students pick from:
- Hour of Drawing with Code: This hour teaches your students to program using JavaScript, one of the world's most popular programming languages. They'll use JavaScript to
program drawings, finishing with a fun draw-a-wild-animal project. Currently, your students need good typing skills and a keyboard to program successfully in JavaScript, but we will also release a tablet-friendly block-based input mechanism for younger students in time for Hour of Code. Recommended ages: 10+ for the typing environment, 8+ for the block-based environment. - Hour of Webpages: This hour teaches your students to make their own
webpages using the basics ofHTML and CSS, finishing with a holiday greeting card. Your students need good typing
skills and a keyboard to program in HTML/CSS. Recommended ages: 10+. - Hour of Databases: This hour teaches the fundamentals of databases, which are how apps store data about users and content.
Your students will use SQL to create tables, insert data into them, and do basic querying, finishing with a project to create a database for an imaginary store. Your students need good typing skiils and a keyboard to program in SQL. Recommended ages: 12+.
Each option includes the following content:
- Videos and “talk-throughs”, which are how we teach programming concepts.
- Coding challenges, which give the student a chance to practice the concept and give us a way to automatically grade them and award points.
- A final project, a way for students to use what they’ve learned in a more creative, free-form way.
We believe that it will take students about an hour to get through any one of the options. However, we also believe on Khan Academy that students should be able to learn at their own pace, so we encourage you to give students more than an hour (like 1.5-2 hours), or make it clear that they don’t need to finish the entire lesson.
Appropriate for PreK - Grade 4 (using laptop, or displayed on Smart Board):
Appropriate for PreK - Grade 4 (using iPad or displayed on Smart Board):
With ScratchJr, young children (ages 5-7) learn important new skills as they program their own interactive stories and games.
By snapping together graphical programming blocks, children can make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. In the process, children learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer. They also use math and language in a meaningful and motivating context, supporting the development of early-childhood numeracy and literacy. With ScratchJr, children don’t just learn to code, they code to learn.
By snapping together graphical programming blocks, children can make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. In the process, children learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer. They also use math and language in a meaningful and motivating context, supporting the development of early-childhood numeracy and literacy. With ScratchJr, children don’t just learn to code, they code to learn.
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