🐾 Activity Title: “Coding the Feelings Path – Helping Our Animal Friends!”

Age group: 4–6 years old
Duration: 35–40 minutes
Group size: Whole class (13 children, working in small groups)
Theme: Coding + Emotional Intelligence (unplugged activity)
EU Code Week Focus: Basic coding concepts – sequencing, direction, problem-solving, emotional awareness

🎯 Learning Objectives

Understand coding as giving step-by-step instructions (sequencing).
Recognize and name basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, scared, calm).
Develop empathy, teamwork, and communication.
Practice logical thinking and debugging through playful exploration.

🧠 Materials Needed

A few animal dolls or puppets (e.g., bear, rabbit, lion, cat, etc.)
Floor grid (made with tape or large paper squares)
Emotion cards (😊 😢 😡 😱 😌) placed randomly on the grid
Direction cards or arrows (⬆️ ⬇️ ⬅️ ➡️)
A “goal” space — e.g., a “happy place” or “hug spot” for the animal

🚀 Activity Steps

1. Story Introduction (5 min):

Gather the children in a circle and tell a short story, for example:

“Our animal friends feel lots of emotions today! The little rabbit feels sad because it lost its favorite carrot. Let’s help it find the way to its happy place by giving it the right code of steps!”

Show the animal doll and invite the children to comfort it — connecting emotionally before the coding begins.

2. Learn the Commands (5 min):

Teach or review the coding directions:

Step forward 🔼
Step backward 🔽
Turn left ⬅️
Turn right ➡️

Let children act out the commands together before coding their animals.

3. Coding the Path (15 min):

Place the animal doll at “Start.”
Place emotion cards along the grid squares (e.g., sad face, happy face).
The goal: Guide the animal to the “happy” square by coding the right path.
One child acts as the programmer giving the instructions; another moves the animal as the robot.
The rest of the group checks if the “code” works — and helps “debug” if the animal goes the wrong way.

Each turn can end with a short emotional reflection, e.g.:

“Now our rabbit is smiling! What makes you feel happy?”

4. Group Rotation (10 min):

Divide children into small groups (3–4 per group).
Each group chooses a new animal and emotion story (e.g., “The lion is angry,” “The bear is scared”) and creates its own emotion path for classmates to solve.

5. Reflection Circle (5 min):

Gather again and discuss:

What did we do to help our animals feel better?
What steps helped us solve the problem?
How did teamwork make our code better?

Encourage emotional vocabulary and connection between coding logic and empathy.

🌈 Extension Ideas

Have children draw the code with arrows and emotion symbols.
Use music (happy/sad tones) at emotion squares.
Create a “Code the Kindness Path” — where the animal helps a friend instead of finding an object.

💬 Key Concepts Introduced

Algorithm: a list of steps to solve a problem.
Sequencing and debugging.
Emotion recognition and empathy.
Collaboration and communication.

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