I love celebrating the Hour Of Code in December with my students, and I’m always on the lookout for new games or resources to introduce to my students.  When I came across the book, How To Code a Sandcastle by Josh Funk, I knew I had to buy it and use it this year with my students.  I also knew just what I wanted to create to go along with the book:  a hands-on unplugged coding activity!

First, I made a huge 8×8 grid in a corner of my library using painters tape, so I wouldn’t hurt the carpet when I took it back up.  I then placed the game cards in different squares on the grid.  The action cards were placed on the board (in my case the bookcase) for the “programmer” to use.

The object of the game is to “move” the robot through the grid to collect all the buckets of sand in number order, make a sandcastle, and then end the game.  I created a Compass Rose and placed that in the center of the grid so kids would have a reminder during the game.  I created signs with the four main directions (North, South, East and West) which matches the signs in Course #1 on Code.org.  I also included signs that said “Move Forward, Turn Left, Turn Right”, which matches the games in Course #2 on Code.org.

Here’s how you play:

1.Select a student to be the robot, and have them stand on the “Start” square.

2.The programmer uses the action signs to “move” the robot through the grid to find “Bucket #1”.  Then, the programmer must use the “Pick Up Bucket” action sign to collect the bucket of sand.

3.Repeat these steps to collect all 5 buckets of sand.

4.Once all 5 buckets have been collected, the programmer “moves” the robot to the “Make Sandcastle” and “empties the 5 buckets” (drops the 5 bucket signs on top of the “Make a Sandcastle” card).

5.Finally, the programmer “moves” the robot to the “End”.

6.The robot must avoid the crab, beachball, dog, and waves either by moving around them or jumping over them.

They had so much fun taking turns as the “Programmer” or the “Robot”!  I was amazed to see their creativity, and how some kids quickly picked up combining directions.  Instead of doing one direction at a time, some said “Go north 2 times, then go west 3 times.”  When we transitioned from this unplugged coding game to the actual Hour of Code courses, I didn’t have to do as much explaining with my younger kids.

This was so popular with my younger kids that they’ve asked for this to be a Makerspace station with new games to “code”.  (Even my older students were intrigued by the grid and wanted to know more about it!)  So be on the lookout for additional unplugged coding activities coming soon! 🙂

If you’d like to do this fun unplugged coding activity with your students, you can get it here on my website or here at my TpT store.