Published October 11, 2022
Additional Getting an Early Start with Growing Hands, Minds, and Hearts articles:
When Lyn Day, a teacher at Operation Breakthrough in Kansas City, MO, was asked to
try coding with her early childhood learners,
she was initially a little apprehensive. After all,
a day in the life of any preschool or day care
teacher doesn’t typically involve robotics. “I
wasn’t sure if I was going to be capable of
teaching the children of what they needed
to know. But, once I familiarized myself with
Bee-Bot®, I was like, oh! OK! This is going to be
easy. It is child’s play!”
Operation Breakthrough is a long-established
center whose mission since
1971 has been to advocate for, educate, and
empower local underserved children and their
families. They partnered with Pitsco Education
in 2021 to bring cutting-edge educational
technology to their students – such as the
Bee-Bot, a unique hands-on coding tool
specific to early childhood.
“I thought it was going to be more
complex, involve more things to do with a
computer,” Day said. But she quickly realized
that there isn’t even a screen involved;
Bee-Bot moves only when the directional
buttons on its top get pushed. “Once I got
them out and I charged them and I played
with them, I thought this is really cool! The
kids are going to love it.”
Her instinct was right – kids do love a robot!
At first, Day wanted the children to simply
play with the Bee-Bots and explore what the
buttons do. And even though the directional
and cause-and-effect concepts were new to
the children (the left button makes the bot turn
left, for example), after a little trial and error,
they picked it up quickly. One little girl even
wanted specific directions to get from Point
A to Point B. “She followed the instructions to
the letter,” Day stated with pride. “She did really
well, and that was her first time using it!”
So, Day and her fellow teachers found they
were able to shortly graduate the children to
other guided and cross-curricular activities
using Bee-Bot. One activity started with
having the children mix colors together to
create new colors, and then the children
programmed Bee-Bot to travel to the various
colors they had made. Another activity
involved the children sitting in a circle and
figuring out how many times they needed
to press the forward button to get Bee-Bot
across the circle to somebody else.
The teachers also implemented some
activities from the Bee-Bot tins and mats. The
themed tins can teach learners about wind
turbines, math, patterns, and more, while the
various mats are giant grids showing images,
treasure maps, illustrated construction sites,
and more, all of which promote geography,
spatial awareness, and storytelling.
What Day and her colleagues love about
using Bee-Bot is not only does it teach
students the basics of coding, but it also
introduces self-regulation, teamwork, and
problem-solving. “They need that throughout
their childhood,” Day said. “It helps them to
believe in themselves and take risks. They can
make it go somewhere, and they don’t know
if it’s going to work or not, but it’s OK to fail.
They know they can try again.”
Day’s sentiment is true for teachers too.
Students are already eager to learn about
coding and robots; they don’t need to be told
that it’s cool and different and fun! Luckily,
Bee-Bot is proof that coding doesn’t have to
be complex or scary to teach. “The sky’s the
limit,” she continued. “You just
have to believe in yourself.
We just give them the
foundation, and
then they can
build upon it.”