Coding for Kids
Toy Hacking and Puppet Building: Get to Know Edu-Maker Sam Patterson
Every so often one teacher makes a name for himself in ways that are beyond creative, beyond anything you’d expect in the classroom. That name is Sam Patterson. Sam is a maker teacher like none other. If your child has the chance to taught by Sam, they’ll be hacking toys, building puppets, and combining digital with analog mediums in ways that you probably never considered before. Sam will be moderating Monday’s #Tynkerchat, with our dedicated code-minded educators. Here’s a little more about Sam:
Sam Patterson, M.F.A., Ed.D. is a Makerspace teacher for PreK-6th grade students at Echo Horizon School in Culver City California. Dr. Patterson is an innovative teacher using puppet building and toy hacking to inspire kids to create and share. His shares his work through his blog MyPaperlessClassroom.com and his book “Programming in the Primary Grades: Beyond the Hour of Code” at BeyondtheHourofCode.com. You can reach him on Twitter at @SamPatue.
This week, Sam shared his passion for puppetry and coding with us:
1. You’re quite the unique maker teacher. How did you get into puppetry?
Robots and puppetry?
I loved puppets when I was growing up, some of my favorite toys were puppets. Several years ago as I started learning to make videos I got back into puppets because I wanted someone else’s face to be in my videos.
A family of puppets in the maker lab.
4. At Tynker we also like to remind teachers to go “Beyond an Hour” of code. Why is this so important right now?
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Thanks again Sam! We’ll look for you on Twitter at @SamPatue
Join Sam as he moderates #Tynkerchat for us this Monday.
