Learn Coding without Computers

September 9, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

National Coding Week begins Sept. 14, so it’s a great time to teach your kids a little bit about coding. Of course there are all sorts of online resources to learn how to code, but it’s also fun, especially when kids are first starting to learn the concepts of coding, to work without a computer.

Concepts like pattern recognition and following step by step directions are essential in understanding the logic behind coding, and those things are easy to teach without a screen.

Carly and Adam has a good post about the first activities to introduce coding without a screen, including directional coding, retelling a story in sequence, and coding their own stories.

Little Bins for Little Hands has lots of great resources on coding for kids, including printable secret code worksheets that have kids follow instructions to make a drawing on a grid, and a collection of printable coding worksheets and other activities. Coding your name in binary is a classic.

Teach Your Kids Code is another great place to learn about coding for different ages of kids. A couple of fun examples are coding with a deck of cards and with magnet tiles. (Check out more activities using magnetic tiles.)

Speaking of common household items you can use to teach coding, another great option is to use Legos or other blocks to build mazes that help teach the basics of coding.

Team Cartwright has a great post on coding with Legos starting with the most basic skills (sorting into components and repeating patterns) and building on those basic skills to follow a code or write your own code.

Research Parent has a great activity for building a Lego maze with code, which includes printable base mazes to build as well as blank mazes so they can build their own. There are also printable coding phrases so you or your kids can write a code for going through the maze and see if it works. Older kids could write the code and then try to build a maze from those instructions.

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Fine Motor Task Cards for Kids

I don’t know why Pinterest just suddenly decided I needed to see all the content about task cards and task boxes for kids, but these ideas are great for the classroom to keep in centers or have on hand for early finishers. You can also use them at home as quiet bags or boxes for kids to use when younger siblings might be sleeping, or in the car for a non-screen activity.

Let’s take a look at some fine motor skill task cards and how you can use them to teach kids skills while they play.

Pre-K Pages has a nice set of playdough task cards you can use in boxes or bags with a little tray (or they can just work on the table if they are sitting at a table). Working with clay or play dough is a great fine motor skill exercise, or you can add these to your playdough center if you have one to give them a little bit of direction while they work.

Teaching Mama has a bunch of great ideas for fine motor task boxes, from practicing working a glue bottle to threading beads, using clothespins or scissors, dropping water, finger painting and more. There’s a free printable that shows all the task options she talks through in the post if you want to make your own little boxes, or just keep these ideas on hand when you’re ready to add some fine motor fun to your days.

One of the ideas she mentions in that post is working with a hole punch, and Early Learning Ideas has a whole bunch (the urge to write “hole bunch” is strong) of ideas for printables that help kids practice hole punching, whether it’s a strip with circles on it for them to punch or pictures that include circles for punching, these ideas make it a little more fun to practice this important skill.

My Happy Place Teaching has a whole post about using fine motor task boxes in kindergarten, and her paid resource includes more than 100 task ideas with printables. But if you don’t need 100 boxes you can still get some good ideas from this post about different tasks to include and why and when you can use them. She also mentions using them in the morning while you’re busy with kids coming in at different times, which is a great idea.

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