SPIKE™ Essential

Get Around Town

The team are headed to Spike Castle! How can you help them get there?

45-90 min.
Beginner
Years 3-5
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Prepare

NOTE: This lesson will extend over two 45-minute class sessions.

  • Review the Get Around Town lesson in the LEGO® Education SPIKE App.
  • Consider the abilities and backgrounds of all your pupils. Differentiate the lesson to make it accessible to everyone. Please refer to the Differentiation section below for suggestions on how to do this.
  • If time permits, plan and facilitate the language arts extension. Please refer to the Extension section below for further information.

PART A (45 Minutes)

Engage

(Whole Class, 10 Minutes)

  • Facilitate a quick discussion about different modes of transport.
    • Talk with your pupils about the modes of transport they've built and programmed in the previous lessons.
    • Ask questions like these: What other modes of transport could be used to get around a town?
  • Introduce your pupils to the team and the challenge: brainstorming different ways of getting to Spike Castle.
  • Distribute a brick set, any additional brainstorming materials and a device to each group.

Explore

(Small Groups, 25 Minutes)

  • Have your pupils use the LEGO® Education SPIKE App to guide them through their first challenge:
    • Create a way for the team to get to Spike Castle. Use at least one motor or sensor (i.e. Colour Sensor or Light).
  • Your pupils can brainstorm using the LEGO bricks supplemented with additional materials. Encourage them to think of multiple solutions.

Explain

(Whole Class, 10 Minutes)

  • Facilitate a sharing session in which your pupils present their initial ideas and provide feedback and suggestions to their peers.

PART B (45 Minutes)

Elaborate

(Small Groups, 30 Minutes)

  • Have your pupils build, program and test the prototypes and ideas that they came up with during the brainstorming session in Part A of this lesson.
  • Remind them to use at least one motor or sensor.
  • Encourage them to test and refine their models and programs over 2-3 iterations.
  • You can find coding and building help in the Tips section below.

Evaluate

(Whole Class, 15 Minutes)

  • Ask guiding questions to encourage your pupils to ‘think aloud’ and explain their thought processes and reasoning in the decisions they’ve made while building and programming their models.
  • Have your pupils tidy up their workstations.

Observation Checklist

  • Measure your pupils’ proficiency in applying their computational thinking skills to completing the given task.
  • Establish a scale that suits your needs. For example:
    1. Requires additional support
    2. Can work independently
    3. Can teach others

Self-Assessment
Have each pupil choose the brick that they feel best represents their performance.

  • Yellow: I think that I can design, build and program a solution.
  • Blue: I can design, build and program a solution.
  • Green: I can design, build and program a solution, and I can also
    help a friend to do it.

Peer Feedback

  • In their small groups, have your pupils discuss their experiences of working together.
  • Encourage them to use statements like these:
    • I liked it when you…
    • I'd like to hear more about how you…

Tips

Coding Tips

  • There are no coding instructions or Inspiration Coding Blocks for this lesson.
    • Encourage your pupils to experiment and find their own solutions.

Model Tip

  • There are no building instructions or Inspiration Images for this lesson.
    • Encourage your pupils to create their own models.
    • If they require further guidance, refer them to the building instructions for the previous lessons in this unit.
  • There is no right or wrong model for this lesson.
    • Your pupils can create entirely new models, find inspiration in the models from the previous lessons or simply recreate models from earlier lessons.

Differentiation

Simplify this lesson by:

  • Reading the Get Around Town story from the
    LEGO® Education SPIKE App aloud to your pupils
  • Giving your pupils the building instructions from the previous lessons to use as inspiration for their new ways of getting to Spike Castle

Increase the difficulty by:

  • Using additional motors or sensors
  • Creating two unique programs that move in two different ways to get to Spike Castle

Extension

  • Have your pupils write a story about how the team got to Spike Castle. Tell them to use dialogue and descriptions where it’s appropriate.

If facilitated, this will extend beyond the 90-minute lesson.

Language Arts: National Curriculum English En3/3.3 Composition b

Teacher Support

The pupils will:

  • Apply computational thinking skills to solve a problem
  • Recount events using relevant details, clearly expressing their feelings and ideas

(one for every two pupils)

  • LEGO® Education SPIKETM Essential Set
  • Device with the LEGO® Education SPIKE App installed
  • OPTIONAL: Additional materials for brainstorming (e.g. notebook paper, science notebook, etc.)

National Curriculum

Computing
Co2/1.3

  • use logical reasoning to explain how some simple algorithms work and to detect and correct errors in algorithms and programs

English
En3/3.3b
Draft and write by:

  • composing and rehearsing sentences orally (including dialogue), progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and an increasing range of sentence structures
  • organising paragraphs around a theme
  • in narratives, creating settings, characters and plot
  • in non-narrative material, using simple organisational devices

Pupil Material

Student Worksheet

Download, view or share as an online HTML page or a printable PDF.