A Peek Into Our Course: Junior Coders Programme - Coding, Robotics, Montessori Learning and Tinkering with STEM
Giving their child the best of everything is what every parent wants. Starting off on a good note in their learning journey is extremely crucial for our young ones, especially for coding. The earlier you get a head start, the easier it is to grasp and understand the concepts!
With an award-winning curriculum inspired by MIT, our Junior Coders Programme (JCP) is specially designed for little ones aged 5 to 6 to be introduced to the wonderful world of coding! They will learn computational thinking skills, which are applicable to both coding and other areas like Mathematics!
We’ve got four exciting themes in the curriculum:
ScratchJr
Tinker with STEM
Hands-On Robotics, and
Montessori
You can opt to attend our regular Weekly classes (5 x 2 hours) which go in-depth into each theme, or dip your child’s toes into various themes with our Holiday Camps (5 x 2 hours). You can also sign your child up for our themed workshops, which only takes 2 hours in order to accommodate the children’s short attention span!
1) ScratchJr
Our young coders get introduced to their first-ever visual programming language, ScratchJr. With inspiration from classic stories such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Five Little Monkeys, and more, kids get to code scenes and understand how to use coding blocks and sequence them correctly to form a story or a mini-game. They will have fun while learning important computational thinking skills to prep them for an increasingly digital world. What an awesome start to their programming journey!
See how our young coders like the one of the right become really focused on making their own creations on ScratchJr! 👉
2) Tinker with Stem
Our tiny tots get to let their imagination run wild in our classes! They are given the opportunity to explore and learn to create light-up circuits with conductible materials, and afterwards, program them to work.
You may be wondering - what exactly does this have to do with coding? Our JCP focus not just on coding, but on equipping our students with computational thinking skills which are adaptable to different programming languages that they can learn in the future! Training their mindset to think logically will help them in the future - whether it be coding, or in other areas such as Science.
👈 Here’s one of our little tots proudly showing his light-up circuit!
3) Hands-on Robotics
Have you ever heard of Photon the Robot? In our Robotics-themed classes, our Junior Coders will get to go on interactive adventures with Photon as they program it to go on a treasure hunt for fruits, play sounds, blink in various colours and much, much more! Similar to Scratch Junior, they will learn to sequence blocks/instructions to achieve their desired outcome - an important problem-solving skill useful in various areas in life.
Our students here are absorbed in programming Photon, the educational robot, using the tablet. With sensors, lights and adorable sounds, Photon makes learning even more exciting! 👉
4) Binary and Pixels - Montessori-style (Screen-free!)
Our Junior Coders are playing with the Learning at home set by Learning Beautiful!
What is the Montessori method?
Discovered by Dr. Maria Montessori in 1907, the Montessori Method is based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning and collaborative play [Source].
This allows children to make their own creative choices when learning, while the classroom and trained teacher offer age-appropriate activities to guide the process. With the Montessori Method, children will discover and explore knowledge as they work in groups or individually, and gain a deeper understanding of what they are learning!
You can get your own Learning at home set by Learning Beautiful here for your child to use at home!
As your child learns through engaging activities, he/she would also get the opportunity to get hands-on with Montessori-inspired coding toys that have been designed at MIT and ethically produced in the USA!
Our Montessori-themed classes utilise the gorgeous wooden Learning at Home Set by Learning Beautiful. Suitable for ages 3 to 9, the set has hands-on materials such as the binary tree and pixel boards that enable children to learn the basics of computer science without screens. A sneak peek of the concepts taught include binary, conditionals, randomness and many more! By combining play and hands-on learning, your child will gain a good foundation in programming concepts while having endless hours of fun with the set!
So why Coding Lab's Junior Coders Programme?
“Before I came to teach at Coding Lab, I did not know that programming concepts could be taught to young children in such interesting and effective ways! During our JCP classes, I can see how much the children enjoy learning from their excited faces. There were plenty of hands-on activities in the lesson plans that were very suitable for young children.”
As a trusted partner of IMDA, Coding Lab has brought the unique JCP curriculum to many preschools. We’ve even helped more than 7,000 bright preschoolers start their coding journey through our Tiny Thinkers initiative!
“We enjoyed our session very much. My child typically doesn’t sit still for too long, but he managed to follow the session, and the satisfaction and having created his own little program was unspeakable… pure joy written all over his face.”
In addition to our thoughtfully planned and curated curriculum, our educators undergo extensive training so that our students will learn while having fun at the same time! 🤩
As our Junior Coders are involved in engaging activities with ScratchJr, STEM, Robotics, and Montessori-inspired toys, our passionate educators will be right by their side to ensure an enriching learning experience. We ensure a maximum student-to-teacher ratio of 1:6, so every child gets the attention that he or she deserves.
So what are you waiting for? Give your child the best head start - book your slot here today! 😉
* Tablets (Twin-sharing) are provided for ScratchJr, but students are welcome to bring their own! All equipment is provided for Tinker with STEM, Robotics and Montessori. 😊
Here's how you can become a Junior Coder (ages 5 to 6)!
Read next: A Peek Into our Advanced Computer Scientists Course –Broad-Based Exposure to STEM Topics
(Written by Zulaikha and edited by Thinzar)