Nursery World - Learning & Development: Computational Thinking: Part 3

Computational thinking can take place in the kitchen, when sequencing stories, in experimenting with floating and sinking objects, and even when playing with toy cars, explains Marc Faulder

The ‘enabling environment’ needs to provide opportunities for children to develop skills that will benefit them most immediately in Key Stage 1, but also later in life. An obvious example is computational thinking.

Conveniently, this involves a set of overlapping skills – from logical reasoning to problem-solving and evaluating – that mirror the Characteristics of Effective Learning (CoEL), in particular ‘Creating and thinking critically’ (see box). Cross-referencing the two can reinforce best practice by helping practitioners to develop an environment that enables these types of behaviours to take place more readily.

Like the CoEL, computational thinking skills can be promoted without the use of digital technology. However, adding technology to the mix of activities can not only enhance their thinking skills but also introduce them to basic coding (see box). This can be seen in some of the activities below, which explore the skills of ‘debugging’ and ‘logical reasoning’.

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