Creating new and innovative lesson plans for students can be challenging, especially when time is limited. Fortunately, some products offer ready-made lesson plans to make the job easier for teachers. These resources can benefit teachers who want to incorporate physical computing devices or cross-curricular teaching into their classrooms. The benefits of ready-made lesson plans are numerous. They save teachers time, effort, and money and keep them from spending hours researching and creating lesson plans from scratch.
Ready-made lesson plans designed for specific products make teaching more manageable. Teachers can download a lesson plan from a platform or the internet, customize it to suit their needs, and use it with their students. This allows them to teach computational thinking skills engagingly without spending time creating the lesson plan themselves. With the help of ready-made lesson plans, teachers can provide their students with a meaningful and exciting learning experience.
Products Offering Ready-Made Lesson Plans
One of the best ways to teach computational thinking skills is through Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) centered products. Here are some top-rated products that meet cross-curricular learning standards and make teaching easier for educators.
3DuxDesign is a unique building product that allows students to design and build customized structures using cardboard and connectors. This product promotes creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration. It comes with lesson plans focusing on STEAM concepts. It allows students to explore design, engineering, and architecture through project-based learning. Art is a routine integration in these lesson plans in a meaningful way that adds value to the core content. The lesson plans are easy to follow and provide a fun and engaging learning experience.
KIBO is a playful and creative STEAM coding robot designed for young learners in PK-5th grade, backed by 20 years of child development research. With screen-free, hands-on programmable robotics, students create, design, decorate, and bring their robots to life. Over 60 countries use KIBO with proven efficacy in helping kids learn STEAM. It offers a complete suite of curricula to integrate STEAM elements into any subject. When children code with KIBO, they learn invaluable skills that will lead them to success in STEAM skills and future careers. As they gather all these coding skills, they will think it is just playing!
KaiBot is a programmable robot designed for students in grades 4-12 designed to teach students the basics of coding and robotics. This bot offers a unique hybrid experience as students can code screen-free using cards or via their virtual platform using block or text-based coding. It comes with lesson plans that cover cross-curricular topics such as social-emotional learning, math, language arts, game design, and coding. The lesson plans are easy to follow and provide a fun and engaging learning experience.
Strawbees is a construction-based learning kit for building anything from simple structures to complex robots. It comes with lesson plans that cover topics such as engineering, design thinking, and problem-solving, all set in a cross-curriculum model. The lesson plans provide the following:
- Students with a comprehensive understanding of designing and building structures while promoting creativity.
- A deeper understanding of core concepts.
- Critical thinking skills.
Dash is a programmable robot designed for students in grades K-5. This product teaches computational thinking, problem-solving, STEAM concepts, and coding. Dash offers various lesson plans to help teachers integrate robotics, gamification, and coding into their classrooms. With Dash, students learn how to program robots and explore coding in both a physical and virtual environment, keeping students engaged with the concepts.
Finch is a programmable robot designed to teach students in grades K-12 the basics of computer science. This product is excellent for teaching computational thinking, problem-solving, and coding. Finch offers various lesson plans to help teachers integrate robotics and coding into their classrooms. The lesson plans cover programming, algorithms, and data analysis while incorporating cross-curricula content from the core STEAM subject areas. The lesson plans are easy to follow and provide a great introduction to computational thinking.
Kai’s Clan is an all-in-one STEAM toolbox. This robotics platform allows students to build and program robots for various tasks while exploring multiple augmented and virtual reality aspects. It comes with lesson plans that cover a broad spectrum of STEAM and coding-related topics. Their interactive mats bring the lessons to life, creating a deeper level of student engagement. The lesson plans are easy to follow and provide an excellent teaching method using project-based learning and computational thinking skills.
Ozobot is a small robot that can be programmed using different colors and patterns or via traditional coding blocks or languages. It comes with lesson plans that cover a wide array of topics, many of which target history or current events. The lesson plans are easy to follow and cover various learning experiences.
Pi-top is a classroom rigid, modular, programmable kit designed to bring Computer Science into the physical world and teach students coding and robotics. This product fits perfectly in a high school engineering course. Students can build one of our three robots or design their project with 50+ metal plates, rivets, a camera, motors, and more. The electronics portion of the kit offers a collection of lights, sensors, buttons, and dials, making it great for STEAM projects. Their learning platform, Further, provides lesson plans that cover everything you need to teach computer science & robotics – from beginning coding to advanced AI while ensuring the incorporation of STEAM skills.
CoDrone EDU is a programmable drone explicitly designed for classrooms. It helps teach students ages 12+ coding and robotics while exposing them to drone piloting, one of the newest areas of the STEAM job market. Code it in Python or start from the basics with block-based coding. Unique to this drone are its color sensors, a front range sensor, and a bottom range sensor, among others—all usable in code. CoDrone EDU offers lesson plans that cover topics such as programming, robotics, and engineering. The CoDrone EDU lesson plans teach skills such as drone piloting, coding foundations, flight directions, graphing sensor data collection and analysis, mapping, coding, and much more. The lesson plans provide students with a comprehensive understanding of coding and robotics while promoting critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills.
Benefits of Ready-made Lesson Plans for Educators
As previously mentioned, there are many benefits to ready-made lesson plans for educators. Furthermore, teachers who purchase these products will receive access to a wealth of information, including lesson plans and STEAM activities. Using tools that offer ready-made lessons can help busy teachers easily incorporate new tools into their curriculum. Thanks to the variety of products available, teachers can find lesson plans that match their interests and the skills they want their students to develop. By utilizing these products, teachers can save time and effort while providing their students with a comprehensive understanding of various skills and concepts. Moreover, this approach to teaching promotes critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills, preparing students for future STEAM jobs.
