Wonderblocks with Emma Goto

Over the last few years, I have had the pleasure of working as the educational consultant for a new Cbeebies television show called Wonderblocks. This show was created by Blue Zoo Animation Studio and Alphablocks Ltd, the creators of the BAFTA award winning animation  series Numberblocks, as well as the other great educational programmes Alphablocks and Colourblocks.

You may be wondering why this is of relevance to those involved in Technology, Pedagogy and Education? Well, this new programme has been developed with the intention of encouraging computational thinking and problem solving for young children. The programme has been heavily influenced by the computational thinking concepts and approaches from the Barefoot Computational Thinker model .

The show introduces us to a number of lovable characters. Go is a fun character who likes to get stuck in, tinker and make things happen. Go is good at starting things off but Stop comes in and helps to develop other types of thinking. Together, they make a great team, collaborating to create and solve problems, balancing out each other’s skills and having fun along the way.

In this Block world anything can be programmed with ‘Stop’ and ‘Go’ working together with ‘Do blocks’ like ‘Hop’, ‘Moo’ and ‘Splat’ to help the friends they meet to solve a range of fun problems.

You will often see Stop drawing out a plan to work through a problem step by step on a notepad. A good example of this is in Episode: 11, Step By Stepping Stone. Obviously, drawing problems out in this way encourages abstraction and algorithmic thinking. Stop is always encouraging us to persevere and think things through so we can work things out. So, when Arty nearly crashes into a tree stump, we see them working back through and debugging their solution, so all of the hoppers can get safely to the other side of the mud, to have fun on their field trip.

Stop, Go and the Do Blocks help us learn about sequence and identify that order matters. In Episode 12, Rainy Day Bears, the bears are getting ready to go to splash in puddles. We meet the Rainy Day Crew, three do blocks that can help characters to get dressed for the rain. Here we see that order can be important as the bears are getting ready to go and splash in puddles. If you put up your umbrella before you put your boots on, it has hilarious consequences. This important message is reinforced later in Episode: 15, First Thing First, one of the many musical episodes that share key messages through catchy songs.

As well as encouraging computational thinking, this all aligns very closely with the Early Years’ characteristics of effective learning, from the English Statutory Framework for the Early Years. Children are encouraged to play and explore, engage in active learning and develop their creative and critical thinking. Aspects of these three characteristics of effective learning are closely aligned with computational thinking, encouraging children to engage with problems and experiences that they encounter in their world.

Wonderblocks will teach children about computational thinking at home, but like the other blocks programmes, is likely to be watched in Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Key Stage One (KS1) classrooms. Children love to learn through the Blocks programmes and the characters, ideas and approaches are often reflected in their play and discussions. Already people are starting to see some of the Wonderblocks mentioned in role play within their settings. Some teachers have also begun using some episodes in their teaching. For example, Episode: 20, Sounds Like a Plan, encourages decomposing problems and would be a great starter or plenary for a Key Stage One lesson about algorithms. Some are also starting to see the connection between Wonderblocks and Computational Doing as well as Computational Thinking. There are some parallels with simple block-based programming languages such as Scratch Jr that some have recognised. Some teachers have drawn links for children between Go and Stop in the Wonderblocks programme and the Start and End blocks in Scratch Junior, challenging children to re-enact aspects of the story when programming in Scratch Junior. Use of Wonderblocks in the curriculum is understandably only just starting to be explored and I am looking forward to hearing how many other EYFS and KS1 teachers are starting to use it in their practice.

Pictures accompanying this blog

Picture 1 – The animated series Wonderblocks follows the adventures of characters Go and Stop (Image: BBC)