Hour of Code Plugged and Unplugged Activities and Resources

3 min read
Part of the December 2020 STEM Resources Digital Calendar!

December 7 to 13th is the annual Hour of Code event.  Coding is such an important skill that enables students to learn writing and math along with any other subject matter. Coding also inspires students to invent and innovate and prepares them for a workforce that is becoming more remote and freelance. Coding encourages searching for errors (bugs) and fixing them (debugging) and often with peers! Below are the resources to get you ready for dedicating at least one lesson to coding. Click here to find hundreds of apps and tools to meet your distance learning coding needs.

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Coding Tools and Resources

  • The Hour of Code website has tons of ready to go online activities that get students to write code that results in a number of cool outcomes. Search by grade, coding level, and by the type of technology available or unavailable.
  • CS First Unplugged has activities that do not require a computer.
  • Code.org has different activities for elementary students to adults. The Hour of Code activities require no registration. Find tons of unplugged activities that require no technology and a curriculum with objectives and standards for all ages. Join the live virtual events from December 7 to 11th!
  • Tynker is another student favorite that includes projects where students learn different programming languages to create, design, and play games. No registration is required for some of the activities.
  • Kodable has different free activities for elementary students such as creating fuzzies and mazes peers can play on. This is one of my elementary students favorite coding programs.
  • Khan Academy– Students will walk through video lessons that teach them about a programming language. Then students tweak a code for a specific result. This website is for middle school, teens, and adult learners.
  • TinkerCad– If you have access to a 3D printer students (elementary to adults) can complete several quick learning modules to create rings, name tags, and more. The modules are broken down into very simple steps that often take 5 minutes or less.
  • The Hour of Code Bingo Choice Menu was created by Erik Murray and is full of unplugged activities for students to choose. Attach your own Google Form so students submit the work.
  • CS Unplugged has several free printables with pdfs describing the different activities and concepts. Find a list of topics here.
  • CS Unplugged MINES lists several lesson plans for teaching coding, binary, algorithms and more to middle school students.
  • Teachers Pay Teachers has free unplugged printables, games, and activities.
  • Pinterest also has several unplugged coding activities from great STEM bloggers.

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Digital Advent Calendar

Just click on the day and find a post full of free STEM resources and ideas ☃️If you enjoy these resources, then take one of my fully accredited continuing education and graduate online courses or check out my book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies with EdTech Missions!

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