Valentine’s Day Coding Activity

At my daughter’s school, they had an activity like this set up in the tinkering studio around Christmas, but I love it as a Valentine’s Day activity, too.

Using binary code and two colors of pony beads (plus a third to act as the space between “letters”), you can write short secret messages strung on a pipe cleaner, in this case shaped like a heart.

(At school they used green and red beads and straight pipe cleaners or lengths of yarn.)

Check out the post on Little Bins for Little Hands to see how to set up this Valentine’s Day coding activity and download a binary alphabet sheet.

This is such a cute idea. Kids can spell out their initials, mom or dad, love or another short word, and they’re learning a bit about coding as well.

[Photo via Little Bins for Little Hands.

Looking for more ways to teach binary coding? Check out these binary Code resources.

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Learn Coding without Computers

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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