BeeBots and Robots at Langlee

Project Overview
Learning Areas
Levels
Objectives

ICT, Maths, Problem-Solving, Personal and Social Development

Ages 3 7, Pre Level A Level B
The project aims to foster more hands-on, interactive ICT opportunities while
developing collaborative group work and problem-solving skills in the Early Years.

Description

The children used the resources in small, adult-led groups and completed a variety of
pre-planned tasks using the resources. Once the initial group is secure with the
concepts involved, they will help to support other groups of peers to use the

Software
Keywords

resources.
Bee-Bots Starter Pack, Gearbotics Robots packs, Leap-pad Learning Systems.

Early Years, A Curriculum for Excellence, Problem-Solving, Collaborative Group

Work.

Author

Caroline Belleville, Langlee Primary School, Galashiels, SCOTTISH BORDERS.

BeeBots and Robots at Langlee

Teacher Planning and Management
Background & Planning (Overview):
A lot of ICT development work has taken place within Langlee Primary School over recent
years but there is still a need for greater ICT use in Nursery/Early Years classes. Prior
to this project, children had weekly access to ICT suite facilities, but did not get any
hands-on use of more practical ICT equipment. This project has allowed children to
become more active participants in their use of ICT equipment.
See document below for more information.

Classroom Images

see document below.

Documents
Background andClas s room Images
Planning

BeeBots and Robots at Langlee

Teaching Resources
The pupils work was all hands-on and interactive and so they did not require any hand-outs.
However, I have embedded some of the hand-outs used by the teachers and group leaders when
teaching each group. These include the Block Planning sheets followed by the group and the Weekly
Assessment sheets completed at the end of each session by the adult leader. These assessment
sheets were very useful as they allowed the adult leader to evaluate the pace of the work at the
end of each lesson to determine if the children were coping or not. The green/amber/red column
relates to the traffic lights system of Formative Assessment already used within the school and
provided the adult leader with a quick, effective way of recording how well the pupil had coped with
the content of the lesson.

Documents

BeeBots: I created some additional cards for use with the BeeBot (eg letters to be delivered to
specific addresses on the Street Map, shopping lists the children had to use to negotiate the

BeeBots Overview
Gearbotics
As s es s ment Grid
Overview
BeeBotPlan
around the board.) Other
resources,Plan
such as the Treasure Island
cards for BeeBot, had
Blank
been provided in the Starter Pack.

BeeBots Weekly
Planner

Gearbotics Weekly
Planner

As s es s ment Grid
Example

BeeBots and Robots at Langlee

Assessment and Standards

The Project was planned to develop the childrens skills in ICT. The specific outcomes
from Information and Communications Technology 5-14 are
BeeBots
Controlling and Modelling
STRAND - Position and Movement Level A
Understand the following words related to movement/direction
Up/down, left/right, forwards/backwards
STRAND - Control hardware Level A
Explore the use and operation of simple devices.
Gearbotics
Controlling and Modelling
STRAND Control Hardware Level B
Use with assistance (eg a robot) controlling it using single step instructions.
STRAND Knowledge of terms and uses Level B
Name main parts of device used, and describe what the devices can do and stimulate.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Each adult leader completed weekly assessment grids for their group (see
previous slide). At the end of the project, staff involved were asked to
complete a project assessment sheet so their views could be taken into account
when planning further roll-out of the project.

Documents
Blank Project
As s es s ment Grid

Completed Project
As s es s ment Grid

BeeBots and Robots at Langlee

Teacher and School Information

Langlee Primary consists of a mainstream, Nursery and Support Centre for children with
exceptional and complex needs. There are 284 children on the role at present and
approximately 36 children have been involved in the first stage of the project. This will
gradually increase to around 100 children in all. Staff from Nursery and Primary 1-3 have
been involved in the project. All staff involved have had direct input and have used the
resources with small groups of children. Staff were trained in how to use the resources
at the beginning of the project and regular opportunities have been provided throughout
the term for feedback and discussion among the teachers involved.

Caroline Belleville teaches P7 and is Principal Teacher in charge of ICT. She has led small
groups of children from the Early Years classes to help with the development of the new