Year 5 and Binary Code

Within the new Digital Technologies Curriculum, in terms of Yrs 5 and 6, there is some quite explicit teaching that goes on which makes it different to the way we believe that this curriculum can be approached within the lower area of the school.  The concept of Binary Code, for example is one such concept.

Today, within a rotational maths setting in Year 5, we worked on introducing this to the students using an activity designed by Mrs Sansness.   We used an introductory movie within Code.org to set the scene for the children and to get them talking and thinking about the idea.  We looked at an image of the inside of a computer and discussed the on/off idea (binary) in terms of electricity into the cables.

The children then had access to a binary decoder which presented each letter of the alphabet in binary code and the children made a ‘binary bracelet’ by creating the code representing the first letter of their names.   After that we explored a little more with some students creating their whole name and others guessing the code created by their neighbours.

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