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Juniors Coding Development Path

What grade 5-6's should know

Competencies

Conditionals: Understanding if/then statements

  1. Create a program that displays a message on the screen only when a certain key is pressed.
  2. Create a program that changes the background color depending on the time of day.
  3. Create a program that changes the sprite's costume depending on its position on the screen.
  4. Create a program that displays a message on the screen when a certain condition is met.
  5. Create a program that changes the direction of a sprite when it hits the edge of the screen.

Algorithms: Understanding how to solve problems step-by-step

  1. Create a program that calculates the sum of a list of numbers.
  2. Write a program that finds the largest or smallest number in a list of integers.
  3. Create a program that sorts a list of integers using selection sort.

Sprites/Objects: Basic understanding of creating and controlling objects

Abstraction: Understanding how to zoom out and think about bigger picture concepts

  1. Create a program that generates a maze using a predefined algorithm, such as depth-first search.
  2. Write a program that simulates a simple game, such as tic-tac-toe, using object-oriented programming concepts.
  3. Develop a program that generates fractal patterns, such as the Sierpinski triangle or the Mandelbrot set.

Debugging: Advanced problem-solving skills to fix difficult errors in code

  1. Fix a program with syntax errors, such as missing or misplaced punctuation marks.
  2. Debug a program with semantic errors, such as using the wrong variable or incorrect data types.
  3. Correct a program with logical errors, such as an incorrect loop condition or if/else statement.

Resources

Tools

  • Code-along building of games in scratch
  • Code-along building of games in code.org
  • Starting python

See also