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Ruby's Summer School is a day camp for six to nine year old children which runs during the school holidays. At the camp children will learn about technology and programming as well as computational thinking skills through play.
Over the first two days of the camp, children learned all about what computers are and why we need them. They built their own computers using cardboard and studied the meaning of each component inside them.
Tomorrow children will read encrypted messages using UV lamps that they have built themselves. Later in the week they will build a spaceship, discuss social media and learn what an algorithm is.
Each day consists of different topics such as art, food and music. Children will enquire as to whether computers can cook or make art. Through this questioning, they will discover what computers are capable of doing and how they differ from human beings.
The camp is full of different kinds of activities that help children learn technological skills in fun ways. While enjoying the space disco, or playing robot control games, these skills are encouraged to develop while not being intrusive.
Children use only their cardboard computers, rather than real ones, as there are several aspects of theory to discover before the actual coding begins. To begin with, the cardboard computer is used to develop computational thinking skills.
In Finnish comprehensive schools, children start to code in the fifth grade at age eleven, so some of the campers will begin to code during the next school year.
Follow Ruby's Summer School. We will publish new content from the camp every day.