More Preschools and Parents Embrace Computational Thinking at ECC 2019
IMDA Deputy Director Hui Hui demonstrating one of their educational games
Remember Tiny Thinkers and their creative, fun ways to integrate computational thinking into your child’s everyday lives? Well good news, they’re back stronger than ever with new and improved activities rolled out – Now extending their outreach not just to parents, but also formal early childhood institutions island-wide, with over 3,500 kits! Early last month, the Tiny Thinkers team was invited down to the annual Early Childhood Conference (ECC)2019 to share about the importance of computational thinking at the pre-school level. Amongst an array of activities at the ECC exhibition fair, Tiny Thinkers also conducted workshops for mums and dads to try out their exciting games with their children.During the first half of the conference, IMDA Deputy Director Foo Hui Hui shared with early childhood educators on how preschools could step up and prepare young children to be future-ready with the award-winning Play Maker programme.
Coding Lab co-Founder Candice Wang stressing the importance of starting young
Coding Lab, the team behind Tiny Thinkers, then followed up with an informational sharing on the importance of computational thinking in today’s tech-led economy and how to kickstart its development within the comforts of the home in a simple, fun manner.Coding Lab Co-founder Candice Wang also highlighted the shift in our economy towards one that is driven by Artificial Intelligence (A.I), algorithms and automation, urging educators and parents alike to start to prepare themselves from an early age.
Educators trying out the Tiny Thinkers activities
She then went to share some market research findings, which illustrated that whilst more than 60% of the parents surveyed acknowledged the importance of learning coding, an alarming 95% do not have the knowledge or expertise to impart computational thinking skills to their children.Candice then debunked the elusiveness of computational thinking with two simple ways to guide young learners aged 4 to 7 – through every-day activities (eg. Packing your schoolbag) that require little or no cost, and through the Tiny Thinkers Take Home Activity Kit.Armed with the expertise of our tutors and Skool4Kidz on one hand and generous support from IMDA, Our SG Fund, Nexus, and Amazon on the other, Coding Lab and Tiny Thinkers is pleased to present new games such as Solve the Puzzle (Pattern Recognition), Build a House (Abstraction) and a full-fledged board-game (Keeping Singapore Strong) in their well-received Take Home Activity Kit.
Thinzar, the Head of Tiny Thinkers sharing about the importance of Computational Thinking
Kids figuring out how to bring Tibby to the banana
On the 2nd day of the ECC exhibition, the Tiny Thinkers team carried out a series of workshops for parents to try out 3 of their games (Robotibby, Solve The Puzzle, Build a House) and take home the Activity Kit for free!
Putting their pattern recognition skills to the test
Building houses with shapes
So exciting, don’t you think? We at the Coding Lab, Tiny Thinkers, educators, parents and children alike all had so much fun! Stay tuned for more goodies and future workshops held by Tiny Thinkers by following them here.