One of the games I mentioned in my Learning in January post was Robot Turtles. The game, originally launched on Kickstarter, is meant to teach preschoolers the fundamentals of programming in a fun, engaging and playful way.
Joe and I played it this morning and we both had a blast.
The object of the game is to get your Robot Turtle to the matching colored jewel in the middle of the board.
There is a Turtle Master (young players) who tells the Turtle Mover (older players) how to navigate through a maze using directional cards (right, left, forward).
The best part (for me at least) is that the Turtle Mover is required to make silly noises when moving the turtle. That’s right. The game commands me to be a goofball!
So far, we’ve been playing the “Basic Game” in which we create a maze using the stone wall tiles and Joe navigates to the jewel using the right, left or forward arrow cards.
As Joe plays the cards, he puts them in a line so he can look back and see the sequence of commands that got him to the jewel. He’s basically writing code.
As he gets better at navigating the maze, we’ll add in the ice wall and crate obstacle cards. The ice walls can be melted using a laser function card and the crates can be pushed.
And, when he is ready for the most complex part of the game, where he will try to write a program to get to the jewel using as few cards as possible…we’ll introduce the Function Frog.
Having so much fun
Games played with goofy noises
All giggles and smiles
a pinch of homestead 