Branching-If This, Than...

Suitable for 4-6 Years Old

Branching basically means examining conditions which affect the option being made. So, in other words, making a decision relies on what is happening or what happened previously.

Scissors, Paper, Stone

Materials needed

A piece of paper with the following instruction:
If a person shows scissors and the other shows paper, scissors win
If a person shows stone and the other shows scissors, stone wins
If a person shows stone and the other shows paper, paper wins

How to play

Sit facing each other.

Each person uses one hand to either produce scissors, paper or stone .

Play 5 rounds of the game and see who wins!
If both persons show the same item, both persons get 0 point

Source: Adapted from Mattingly, J. (2020, December 13). Unplugged Coding Activities | The Ultimate Guide for Elementary. KodableBlog. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://www.kodable.com/learn/unplugged-coding-activities/

Parent’s Pro-tip

Share with your child that the rules and conditions in branching can be understood by cause and effect. The conditions affect the rules. What each person shows are the condition while who wins is the rule. This is a situation where the condition is true.

This is how it looks like in conditional statement:

IF a person shows scissors and the other shows paper > TRUE > THEN scissors win

If/Then Hula Hoop Coding Activity!

Materials needed

Hula Hoops

How to Play

Tape your hula hoops of various colours on the floor in a grid.

Spread them out far enough so that the players can jump from one to the next.

Assign roles. You will need one ‘programmer‘ and one or more ‘computers‘. Switch roles as the game evolves!

The ‘programmer‘ will give specific instructions that will cause the ‘computer‘ to perform certain actions.

The simplest way to play this game is to have the programmer call out colours and have the computers race to step on the colour.

Get the ‘programmer’ to use programming language when they call out the tasks by saying giving the order using conditional statements for example, ‘If I say BLUE, then run to the BLUE hula hoop’
Add on another instruction, “If it is not BLUE, stay where you are”.

Parents’ Pro Tip:

We have learned from the earlier activity that if a condition is true, then something happens. But what if the condition change? In this activity, another condition is introduced if the ‘programmer’ says that it is not blue, and this changed the rule. This shows that when a condition is false, something else happens.

This is how it looks like in conditional statement:

IF I say BLUE > TRUE > THEN run to the blue hula hoop (Condition 1)

>FALSE> THEN stay where you are (Condition 2)

Share with your child that this is how programmer create codes by giving specific instructions on how computers react based on the conditions. It creates logical actions for the computers to make decisions.

Source: Adapted from Victoria, K. (2018, August 26). Kids coding: Cause and Effect Activity in the Dark! Teach Your Kids Code: Code. Build. Create. Retrieved August 30, 2022, from https://teachyourkidscode.com/cause-and-effect-activity-dark/

Let's Watch!

How to Teach Kids About Conditional Statements | Crash Course for Teachers | Kodable (2.01 min)

Learn about conditions and how they are used in programming! Conditions are basic “if, then” logic statements that modify how code is executed. Conditions are a key part of the decision-making process for computers.