Small Basic - project outline

First thoughts / Ideas for work with year 4 children at Balfour School Topic Small Basic LO create simple programs both text and graphical with Small Basic To include (LO understand the algorithms and syntax of the small basic programming language)

Lesson 1
Evaluate what they know Talk about algorithms, use some non IT examples, like moving around the room and giving explicit instructions to do so. Introduce Small Basic, look at examples of both text and graphics interfaces.

Lesson 2
Look at interface and work on text screen instructions, explain the components of each instruction Provide a reference sheets for code Discuss code, intellisense and syntax Discuss variables what they are and how they are used Experiment with text Develop a conversation between the computer and any user

Lesson 3
More text interaction Using dates / time / Creating loops and what if statements Is this too complicated? Need more content here .....

Lesson 4
Using graphics, draw lines, shapes, rotate etc (including maths, angles, measure, rotation) Use colours, set and random Use turtle, draw a square, triangle, many sided shapes eg hexagon, octagon etc, circle, zigzags Develop tessellations? Could develop text program to input number of sides of a shape and use the program to calculate he angles, then use this to program the turtle

Lesson 5
Create a game based on turtle movements to navigate around obstacles from a pre-drawn background or draw a maze save as background and then navigate using the turtle. OR create own background using the image commands

Developed by Fiona Buchanan