During the week of December 4-8, 2017, The Hamlin School will be participating in the 5th annual Hour of Code, a global movement introducing computer programming to tens of millions of students in 180+ countries around the world, encouraging them to learn how to code. The initiative aims to demystify coding and show that anybody can learn the basics. Hamlin is both proud and excited to use this week, once again, to highlight our coding and robotics curriculum by having every student and faculty member code for at least one hour.

Hour of Code Events

In the Lower School, every class has been scheduled for at least an hour’s worth of coding instruction with Ms. Windell. Girls will use a variety of coding apps that have been selected to be developmentally appropriate for their age/skill level. These apps include Kodable, LightBot, Blockly Games: Maze, Human Resource Machine, as well as resources from the code.org website.

In the Middle School, the girls in Grades 5 and 6 will code during their scheduled time with Mr. Lengel and Ms. Windell. Grade 7 will meet in their Spanish classes to write programs in Spanish, and Grade 8 will code during Advising. We are also excited to offer the girls the opportunity to come in before school and code together. From 7:50 to 8:25 a.m., Grades 5 through 8 will code with Ms. Windell, Ms. Davis, and Mr. Lengel in the Riveter Lab and Great Hall. The girls will explore a combination of Scratch, Compute It, Playgrounds, Lightbot, CargoBot, CodeAcademy, and code.org.

On Wednesday, December 6, girls in Grades 5 through 8 are encouraged to join us in the East Dining Room from 7:50 to 8:30 a.m. to listen to Armita Peymandoust, a Sr. Director in Product Management at Salesforce and a Hamlin parent, and Ayori Selassie, a leader and Product Marketing Manager on Einstein at Salesforce. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to hear how coding has influenced Ms. Peymandoust and Ms. Selassie.

Teachers, administrators, and staff are also invited to join in the fun. Teachers in both divisions will be dedicating some of their meeting time to try their hand at coding, and all members of the faculty, staff, and administration are encouraged to code alongside the girls during different coding activities throughout the week.

We believe that coding continues to be essential for our girls to meet the challenges of their digital times and we look forward to building a greater appreciation for Computer Science as we celebrate this year’s Hour of Code.