Bee-Bots

Here are some examples of other story maps we used:

The story map my group used in class was of an island. We invented a story where Bee-Bot was trying to escape from the volcano, onto the pirate ship.

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with Bee-Bots during the last two classes. I had never used them before and enjoyed learning how to use them. What I enjoyed most about the Bee-Bots was learning how they can be used in other areas of the curriculum. I think Bee-Bots would be an excellent aid in all subjects as a way of creating active, meaningful experiences. I think that all children would enjoy using them in the classroom and that they would be an excellent way of engaging the class.

Here is a video which shows how the Bee-Bots work!

Story maps are a great way to use Bee-Bots. These maps are made up of 15cm boxes, the same distance the Bee-Bots travel. The children can create stories to narrate Bee-Bots’ coded journey across the map.

With this story map, we programmed our Bee-Bot to travel from house to house. We used instruction cards to first plan out the Bee-Bots’ journey before entering the code.

Each Bee-Bot has seven buttons. The robots movement commands are; forwards, backwards, 90 degrees turn to the left and 90 degrees turn to the right. The middle button “go” is what you press after giving Bee-Bot his movement commands. The “X” button cancels all of Bee-Bots prior commands. The pause button allows you to pause Bee-Bot as it moves.

Bee-bots are simple programmable robots that help introduce children to the concept of coding and computational thinking. They can remember a sequence of up to 40 commands, directing it backwards and forwards in 15cm intervals.

We then stopped using the instruction cards and instead had to write down our own instructions. This meant that we had to plan out our Bee-Bots’ journey in our heads before programming it. This might be a bit tricky for young children to understand at first in a classroom but would add greatly to their critical thinking skills.

These story maps are an excellent way of integrating Bee-Bots into other areas of the curriculum. This particular story map could be used in a literacy lesson as a way for children to develop their language and story-telling skills.<br/>