TKP Tips: Teaching the SmallBasic TURTLE TREE recipe

 

 

The parts of the TURTLE TREE recipe are as follows:

1) Recipe – guided line-by-line translation, to teach core concepts. For the core recipe of QVF598-0, you are building on what the kids learned in all of the previous drawing recipes (core IDE and language concepts such as objects, methods, etc…) and For loops.  In this recipe we work on mastering the idea of the use of subroutines and nested branching.  Also we include the Colors API.  The cheat sheet for the core recipe is DPD960. Below is the teacher video for the core recipe.

2) Variation – instructor – led verbal refactoring and modifications to add concepts to the solution. In this variation we build on the initial conditional logic introduced in the core recipe by adding additional conditions.  We also sometimes ‘play’ with changing the size or shape of the tree.  Of course, the kids almost always change the colors too.  The original recipe is found at HILOW, the cheat sheet is at GTS129

3) Recap – presented by the instructors, re-do the recipe to reinforce core concepts. You’ll want to particularly emphasize common mistakes with the If-Then-Else syntax.

4) Quiz – facilitated–pairs reach 100% mastery by working together. Remember to do a recap, instructors repeating the recipe BEFORE you get the kids started with the quiz.  The quiz will be found at ZLS593.  If some of the pairs finish early, let the pairs who are done work on making the variation more creative by changing the shape or size of the tree, or by adding multiple trees.

5) Homework – There is no homework for this recipe at this time.

6) Xtras – There are no Xtras at this time

We are really excited about the growth of TKP.  We welcome feedback on the how we can make these videos better for you as TKP teachers.

Happy teaching!