Unplugged Coding Activities

Have your kids discovered the world of coding yet? In this post I’ll share 3 fun unplugged coding activities that I’ve created to help kids practice coding – without a screen! 🙂

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If you’re looking for even more resources, these posts can help you dive into some fun coding activities and lessons for kids:

• Coding for Kids: Websites, community activities, and free printables
• Best books for kids on coding
• Coding for Kids: Scratch Jr.

I love all the resources mentioned in these posts, and we’ve used most of them in our own home.

I realized, however, that there’s a missing element in a lot of these resources — quite naturally, most coding activities are carried out on a screen :). There are a lot of offline activities as well that are paper-and-pencil or book based, and while I’m a fan of all of the above, I thought it might be helpful to provide something that taught/reinforced fundamental coding skills in a much more active way.

Choreograph a Robot Dance

So I designed an interactive (and very active!!) game that gets kids up and dancing while learning and practicing coding skills.

In this active, offline coding game, a Programmer works with a Bug-finder to set up a set of dance instructions.

The game comes with direction cards, loops, if-then conditions, and challenge cards. It works great with a small group or large group of robot dancers!

Students work together to write code as they choreograph a {human} robot dance, and the if/then conditionals take the dance-off in wild and wacky directions.

This can be played at many different levels, in as simple or complex manner as fits the crowd, so it lends itself easily to natural differentiation for all ages and skill levels. It would work great at home or in a classroom setting.

If you’d like to see a full description and an in-depth preview of this game, you can find it here.  

Write directions using code cards

Have you seen those coding games where you can program a robot to follow a maze?

We’ve participated in a few coding events through our library and a local Apple store where they offered these. It was really fun to code the directions for the maze, figure out how to minimize the code using loops, and add in fun effects like sounds and lights and stuff ;).

There are several adaptations on this idea, but the problem is that they’re all expensive because you have to have an actual mechanical robot of sorts to follow the code.

Here’s a few fun ones to give you an idea … they’d make great gifts! 🙂

I figured I could make a similar version, without the robot, for a fraction of the price. 🙂

Treasure Maps

In this game, your kids will use code cards to map out the route that gets the Superhero to the treasure. They can use arrow cards or word cards and use loops (and loops within loops!) to make the string of code directions as short as possible.

This set comes with:

• 4 unique maps with space to lay out the code cards
• 72 direction cards (36 use words; 36 use arrows)
• 8 loop cards
• 1 blank map to draw your own path
• Answer key with a suggested set of direction for the first map

You can see this activity in my store here.

Pixel Art Alphabet – LIMITED TIME FREEBIE!

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This 57 page Pixel Art Alphabet includes coordinate graphs for every letter of the alphabet (with a color version and a b/w version) to help kids practice graphing on a grid, develop proportional reasoning (using the different sizes of grids provided), and get used to identifying objects by their location (a great skill for coding in Scratch!). 

See the product here in my store for a full description and preview. You can download it for free using the download button below.

Goal of the activity

In this activity, students will draw “pixel” letters based on a set of coordinates.

Two sizes of grids are provided on each sheet so students can see the effect of enlarging an image without changing its pixel density; this lays the foundation for understanding proportional reasoning, a fundamental concept in Algebra.

You can give students different letters to differentiate according to student ability—for example, the letter T is easier to draw than the letter S.

Kids could work on the letters for their initials or spell out their name, or you could do a larger project where each kid colors in one letter to spell out a phrase. (“We love coding!,” etc.)

This would work well as part of a unit study with discussions about any of the extension topics mentioned on the next page, or as a stand-alone math activity. At the end of this packet, you will find a blank copy for kids to create their own design, write the list of coordinates, and trade with a partner to re-create each other’s designs.

Skills involved

This activity prepares students for applications across several subject areas. The following list identifies skills that are directly related to this Pixel Alphabet activity; by practicing filling in points on coordinate grids like the ones in the packet, students will be well-prepared to understand the following topics:

Pre-Algebra and Algebra:

• Proportional reasoning
• Plotting points on a coordinate grid
• Interpreting and creating graphs of equations

Computer Science:

• Understanding the role pixels play in the visual images we see on a screen

Coding:

• Writing code to move characters to new coordinate (The computer coding program, Scratch, is a great example of this!)

Geography:

• Reading maps (Or does this fall in the “History” category now? 😉 )

Art:

• Understanding how an image from a photograph can look pixelated when it gets enlarged;
• Using the grid enlargement technique to re-create a drawing in different size. (example: A drawing or photograph can be accurately painted on the side of a building by “transferring” the picture one square at a time.)

Crafts:

• Cross-stitch

Games:

• Battleship – identifying points on a grid

Note: Although some of these situations make use of an x-y coordinate grid instead of one with letters on one side and numbers on the other, this exercise of plotting points will still prepare students for the Algebraic and coding applications when they encounter them later on.

Download your FREE copy of the Pixel Art Alphabet

If you like this product and would like to hear about more fun Math and STEM related products, consider subscribing using the form at the bottom of this post.

I respect your time and inbox, so I’ll provide the free resource here and give you the choice whether you’d like to follow along for more real-world learning resources. 🙂

I hope that these unplugged coding activities will help your kids enjoy learning fundamental coding skills!

I’d love to hear how they work out for you, or let me know if you’d like me to create anything else along these lines!

More Unplugged Coding

Interested in finding even more unplugged coding activities, websites, games, and more?

I was recently interviewed on Homeschooling With Technology for a whole episode on Unplugged Coding. You can check it out here:

Unplugged Coding (podcast episode)

Learning Resources for Teachers, Tutors, and Parents

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