The world of Early Childhood Education

What does FABLAB stand for?    It stands for "Fabrication laboratory". Technology is increasing! In Thomas More University of Applied Sciences you have a Fablab . The Fablab is accessible to all students. You see more and more laser cutters 3D printers coming into the schools and cheaper accessible programs to work with. But what can you do with it? Meaningful learning  Meaningful education increases children's motivation and therefore their ability to learn and remember what they learned. I like to work with wooden materials, because it is more natural. As I'm a very creative person I love to create my own materials for my class. This give me the possibility to follow the interests and needs of my children. What can you do with a 3D printer? The 3D printer gives you the possibility to print details of objects that are difficult to see with the bare eye. E.g. insects printed out enlarged or when you work around  the body you can show how their ins...

Who is Cubetto?  Cubetto is a wonderful wooden robot for boys and girls age 3 and up. Cubetto makes programming accessible to children before they can read or write. I love Cubetto because of its natural look and is user friendly. Using hand-on blocks to write their first programs.  The Cubbetto play-set includes two small books. One is the "instruction guide" and the other "Cubetto's first day" with some instruction including the world map.  How does Cubetto work?  You can only talk to Cubetto with the command panel. You have four different blocks: green: forward, red: rotating right, yellow: rotating left. Blue: repeat function. What does repeat function mean. If you want to give the same set of directions more than once, put that sequence in the function line. Now you can use the blue block in the queue every time you want to repeat that sequence. There are different maps of Cubetto they all include a story book. Go together wi...

Who is Code & Go Robot?  He is a blue or purple mouse. How does the robot mouse work? Switch the mouse on, you have two options in speed norm and hyper. On the back of the mouse you have 7 buttons: Blue arrow: forward  Orange arrow: rotating right  Purple arrow: rotating left  Yellow arrow: backwards  Round green button: go  Round yellow button: clear Round red button: random action of moving forward, backwards or making a funny sound.  What can a programmable robot teach?  Problem solving  Self-correcting errors  Critical thinking  Analytical thinking  If-then logic  Working collaboratively with others  Discussion and communication skills  Calculating distance  Spatial concepts  How to introduce Code & Go Robot Mouse?  Get some stories from the toddlers Start with a conversation with the toddlers. What is a robot? What can it do, how do they work. ...

How does a Probot work?  The Probot has the same functions as the Bee-bot. In addition he can do many extra things. This robot has extra a pen holder, numeric keypad, repeat key, menu key, scroll key to go to the menu of your programming. Now you can program your robot to make different angles or change the cm he goes forward or backwards when pressing the arrow by setting a number after the arrow you use. With the penholder you can draw what you have programmed. I am not going to place the complete manual as there is a user guide in the box. What do the children learn? Programming and logical thinking. With the Pro-Bot they learn the basics of programming. Programming appeals to logical thinking. Arithmetic . Among other things, children get to work with measuring, calculating angles, multiplying. Creativity. Children can use their creativity when designing, especially when drawing. Accurate work. Working with the Pro-Bot is very precise; if you pro...

What is a Blue-bot and a Bee bot?  They both look very similar but are slightly different. The Blue-bot can do a bit more then the Bee-bot. Besides that I like the Blue-bot more because it is transparent and allows the toddlers to see what is inside of a robot. You can program the B-bot with a free app on your phone or tablet and a tactile reader as well. How do they work? On the back of the robot you have 7 buttons: move forward, rotate right, rotate left, move backwards, go, pause 1 second and clear instructions. Underneath you can switch the robot on and off. The robot can remember around 200 steps. This is the same for the Blue bot and the Bee bot. Make a sequence of instructions and then press the go button. To enter a new set of instructions pres the clear button. If the clear button is not pressed, new instructions will be added to the existing sequence. Pressing the pause button will add a pause instruction to the sequence. There are two...