In Computing, Year Two have been learning about algorithms. They learned that an algorithm is a set of instructions a computer follows.
To begin, they had to work with a partner to draw a picture following a set of instructions. This might sound easy, but the children had to face away from their partner and couldn’t reveal their picture until all of the instructions had been followed. The children were amazed at how different their drawings were. This helped them give clearer instructions next time.
Next, the children had to programme a Bee-Bot using the commands: forwards, backwards, left turn and right turn. Before they could see whether their algorithms were correct, they predicted the steps the Bee-Bot would have to take to get from its starting point to the correct location. This was quite straightforward at first, but the harder the level, the trickier the prediction was to make. Despite this, the children were able to accurately predict the correct algorithm and programmed the robot to follow the correct route.
