Sonnesyn Elementary Levels Up Coding Skills With Video Game Project
Video games are always popular with a young crowd — and that’s especially true at Sonnesyn Elementary in New Hope, where students build their own games from scratch.
“They start coding in about first grade,” said Matt Schneider, media specialist at the school. “They learn how computers make decisions based on what we tell them to do.”
By fifth grade, they’ve gathered a wide-ranging set of skills.
“Then they get more and more complicated tasks as they go through each year to have computers decide between two choices or react to button presses until they have all the tools to need to make an interactive game,” Schneider said.
Sonnesyn Elementary students show off the video game they coded for their capstone project.
A few clicks of the keyboard turn into vibrant colors and moving figures.
“Just like music and art, coding and video game-making is an art form that they really want to express themselves with,” Schneider said.
Looking beyond the computer screen, these fifth graders get an opportunity to move past adversity and work with a partner.
“You saw some examples where they definitely went above and beyond my minimum expectations for them, what I told them they needed to do for class,” Schneider said.
These video games, which functioned as a capstone project, were also a chance to get away from the quotidian life a school kid.
“I’m lucky in that some of the things I get to talk about, they have an inherent interest in,” Schneider said.
See also: Sonnesyn Elementary in New Hope Celebrates Gains in Reading Proficiency
