The Journey of Educational Programmable Robots “Blue–Bot” in a Group of Four–Year–Old Children
Exhibition author: Kristina Žvinklytė, Vilnius preschool–kindergarten “Vaidilutė”
Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Renata Kondratavičienė, Vilniaus kolegija / Higher Education Institution
Kristina Žvinklytė, a pre–school teacher at the “Vaidilutė” preschool–kindergarten in Vilnius, and Renata Kondratavičienė, an associate professor at the Vilnius College, invite you to the virtual exhibition of the project “The journey of educational programmable robots “Blue–bot” in a group of four–year–old children.”
In October 2022, the environment of the “Voveraitė” group of 4–5–year–old children in the “Vaidilutė” preschool–kindergarten in Vilnius turned into the “Kingdom of Mushrooms”. The forest squirrel gave the children a poster “Mushrooms”. While studying the poster, the children looked for familiar mushrooms and tried to name them. Together with teacher Kristina, the children looked for answers to the questions in the kindergarten group library and online encyclopedias. The children brought photos from home that captured moments of children’s mushrooming, and they eagerly told each other what was depicted in them. The children depicted the mushrooms they liked the most with drawings. The exhibition of children’s drawings could be enjoyed not only by children of the kindergarten group, parents, kindergarten employees, but also by children of other groups.
When teacher Kristina entered the group dressed as a mushroom picker with a basket full of mushrooms, the children were happy to explore real mushrooms, count them, compare them by size and color, and explore them with a magnifying glass. While the children were exploring forest mushrooms, the educational robot “Blue–Bot” came to visit the children. The children created an educational activity mat with pictures of mushrooms to introduce the educational robot “Blue–Bot” to forest mushrooms. The children learned to program the robot, to create a simple multi-command program to guide the robot to the mushroom they liked the most. The children, after pressing the “Go” button, watched the robot’s journey to the mushroom and wondered if they managed to program the robot correctly. If it fails, look for the error and try to reprogram the robot to reach the goal.