Hi, I'm Amy. Welcome to the VEX Classroom. Today, we're going to be talking about connecting literacy with robotics using VEX 123. I'm going to start off by telling you some of the benefits of doing so, and then I'm going to direct you to some of the curricular resources we have that will help you get started.

So, why would you want to connect literacy with robotics using VEX 123 in your literacy classroom? Well, because using robotics in the classroom is fun. It's motivating, it's exciting, and it will give your students new opportunities to interpret and respond to stories, to demonstrate comprehension, and to practice some phonics skills and decoding skills. It might help you reach some of those reluctant readers. You know, the ones who have to raise their hand and go to the bathroom every time you tell them to take out their journal and start writing. If they're writing a story about their 123 Robot or to their 123 Robot, it might just be the spark they need to get engaged.

Another reason is that using stories to teach computer science makes computer science learning accessible. Everybody speaks the language of story, and that is especially true for young children who have been interpreting their world through stories since they were very, very little. Using a story to get started on robotics education can be a gateway for them. It can make everybody feel comfortable and make it a really fun experience for everybody.

Plus, if you are connecting literacy and robotics at the same time, you're doing that cross-curricular teaching that gives you the benefits of this approach. Cross-curricular teaching gives you more time with subjects and more depth with subjects with your students. It gives them another way to practice skills and concepts. It reinforces those concepts and adds to their retention. Plus, it is a really engaging and hands-on way where you're connecting things to the real world, making it very meaningful for students no matter what they're studying.

A third reason that I think you're going to want to do this in your room is practical. Whenever you are doing this cross-curricular teaching and you're adding some robotics into your literacy block, you are giving yourself more time to do so. Everybody has time constraints in their classroom. Every teacher has a situation where there's more that they want to do with and for their students than they have time. If you connect them together, you're going to allow for more robotics and computer science time in your week. Because, of course, not everybody has time to set aside for this.

Also, if you wanted to, you could connect it to center time. Maybe you do literacy centers and you can work in some of our activities there. You could use it for a literacy choice time if you do that, or a playlist or choice boards. There are really a whole bunch of different possibilities for doing this once you get started.

Okay, so how do you get started? I'm going to direct you to some of our STEM labs and activities that I think you will really want to check out for this purpose. The first one I want to show you is our Touch to Code STEM lab. This STEM lab is a phonics-based one. Let me just click on it here for you. In this lab, the students are coding their 123 Robot to go to field tiles that have letter sounds on them. You can see here, they are spelling in order. Consonant vowel, consonant word, pretty simple decoding, but of course, you could change it. You can change what's on the field tiles to digraphs or diphthongs or really whatever phonics topic you're studying. Make it right for your kids at any time. This is a really fun way to get started.

Another way that I really want to show you. Actually, before I do that, just so you're aware, you are able to filter our activities in STEM labs by subjects.

Thank you for joining me today in the VEX Classroom. I hope you found this session helpful and inspiring. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to reach out. Happy teaching and exploring with VEX 123!

So, if you look over here on the left-hand side, you can see these check boxes. You can filter by subject. If you want to just see what we have to offer for literacy, check that box, and they are automatically filtered out for you. So, that's a really great tool that we have.

All right, I also want to show you this activity series. This is the Dragon in the Village activity series. It starts with a narrative story to draw the students in. It's all about a village that has a fire-breathing dragon that's taken up residence there, and the villagers have to get the fire-breathing dragon out. You start by setting up the field with different elements of the story's setting, like the castle and the villagers' houses.

There are three activities connected to this, where they're coding their 123 Robot. In the first one, they have to code the robot to get their villagers safely into the castle to be protected from the dragon. They're using the art ring with an art ring canvas with the villagers on it, which is available to you in the printables.

The second activity involves using the 123 Robot to gather materials from the village and bring them back to the castle. The third one, which I think is fantastic, is a Push the Dragon activity. Here, they're doing a bit of engineering design process by building a dragon-pushing machine. They'll attach it to the art ring on their robot and push the dragon right out of the village. It's a fun and engaging way of connecting literacy and robotics at the same time.

I really hope you have enjoyed this video on connecting literacy with robotics using VEX 123. If you're interested and want to take it up a level, I have another video for you on customizing the resources for your classroom. I'll even get into creating your own resources for teaching robotics and literacy simultaneously, so you can check that out.

Also, I really hope you'll go over to our professional learning community and let us know if you've tried these activities. Please give us some questions and comments over there.

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Have a great time, and I will see you next time in the VEX Classroom.