Year 1 – Moving a robot Lesson plan

Lesson 2 – Directions

Lesson 2: Directions
Introduction
Learners will think about the language used to give directions and how precise it needs to be. They
will also work with a partner to give and follow instructions. These real-world activities should, at
suitable points during this lesson, be related to the floor robot introduced in Lesson 1.

Learning objectives
To act out a given word
● I can follow an instruction
● I can recall words that can be acted out
● I can give directions

Key vocabulary
Instructions, directions

Preparation
Subject knowledge:
You should be familiar with the commands available on your floor robots and consider where to relate
this to learners during their practical activities in this lesson. You should be aware of how words can
be used for instructions and how those words might be used in the activities, as well as those which
would and wouldn’t work well on a robot. For example, the instruction ‘walk’ starts a process without
an end. A human might ask how far they should go, or they may stop if they encounter an obstacle. If
a robot could be issued with the command ‘walk’, it would start a continuous process that wouldn’t be
stopped and could cause the robot to walk into obstacles. A more suitable instruction would be ‘step’.

Note: For the activities in this lesson, learners should ideally work in pairs or, if necessary, threes.

You will need:

● L2 Slides
● Floor robot such as Bee-Bot or Blue-Bot, for plenary
● Space to move around during Activity 3

Assessment opportunities
● Activity 1: Learners should be able to act out each instruction given and limit their response
to just that.

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Year 1 – Moving a robot Lesson plan
Lesson 2 – Directions

● Activity 2: Learners should be able to recall words that they have previously heard that can
be acted out, and give instructions to each other, as demonstrated in Activity 1. They should
be able to follow instructions that they are given by a partner.
● Activity 3: Learners should be able to five directions to others.

Outline plan
Please note that the slide deck labels the activities in the top right-hand corner to help you navigate
the lesson.

*Timings are rough guides

Intro Instructions
(Slides 2–3)
Introduce the objectives of the lesson (slide 2).
5 mins
Show slide 3. Ask the learners to think back to the previous lesson, in which they
thought about robots and how we can control them. Remind learners that they used the
school floor robots and tried out the buttons. Emphasise that the buttons are used to
give the robot instructions.

Activity 1 Following instructions

(Slide 4)
Note: For this activity, do not use instructions that involve moving around yet; that
5 mins will be introduced in Activity 3.

Display the slide and tell the learners that they are going to pretend to be robots, and
that they will be following the instructions you give them, just as the floor robots have
to. That means they shouldn’t be doing anything that you have not told them to do.

Give the class simple instructions to follow, one instruction at a time. Ask the class to
all act out the instructions you give. Ensure that you give precise instructions and keep
the wording to a minimum, for example stand up, sit down, put your hand up, nod,
wave, clap once, and so on. The same instruction can be used many times. You may
also choose to issue an instruction twice in a row; this may or may not require the
learners to act; for example, they can nod again, but they can’t sit down again if they
are already sitting down.

Note: Give instructions that can be followed easily; for example, only ask learners to
turn around if they are in a position where they can do that, that is, standing.

Activity 2 More instructions

(Slides 5–6)
Display slide 5. Ask the learners to talk to a partner about words or short phrases that
10 mins are or can be used as instructions. After a minute, ask the learners to share their
suggestions. Encourage them to say the word or phrase and explain what it means or
looks like when acted out. Write up these words and short phrases as a class list. You
may wish to add a small picture with each one to help the learners remember what the
words are later, as they will be choosing instructions independently in the next part of
the activity.

Note: Suggestions can include words or phrases that you used in Activity 1. If learners

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Year 1 – Moving a robot Lesson plan
Lesson 2 – Directions

suggest instructions that involve moving around, note them down in a separate list that
can be revisited in Activity 3.

Show slide 6 and tell the learners that they are now going to try out the instructions in
the class list (not involving moving around the room) in pairs. Ask one learner to give
their partner instructions, one at a time, to act out. Remind the learners that the
instructions need to be from the class list and should be said clearly. Explain that the
learner who is following instructions is pretending to be a robot and can only do as
they are instructed, as long as it is safe to do so..

After five minutes, ask the learners to swap roles.

Activity 3 Giving directions

(Slides 7–8)
Show slide 7 and ask the learners to think of instruction words to move each other
10 mins around the room. Before gathering responses, ask the learners to think about the floor
robot from the last lesson and to suggest instructions for moving. With each
suggestion, ask the learner to act out their word.

You may need to encourage the learners to think of single words or short phrases, and
also to think about precision (like the robot). Add words to the class list and highlight
those that will work particularly well; for example, ‘step’ is a better instruction than
‘walk’ (see subject knowledge section above).

Note: Learners may suggest turns, but may not be accurate with the terms left and
right. To make the activity achievable, tell the learners that they can use the instruction
‘turn’ and show by pointing which way they want their partners to turn.

Allow learners to try the movement instructions out with each other (slide 8).

Explorer task: If some learners are successfully issuing and following instructions,
ask those learners to think about a specific destination in the room that they can try to
direct their partner to.

Plenary Moving a robot

(Slide 9)
Show learners a floor robot, drawing their attention to the buttons on the top. Explain
5 mins that you are going to give the robot some secret instructions, and that they will see the
robot move and will then need to work out what those instructions were.

Out of sight of the learners, give the robot some simple instructions, for example, to
move forwards once or twice or to move backwards once or twice. Once you have run
the program, ask learners to suggest which instructions you have given the floor robot.

Summary Assessment of confidence

(Slides 10–
11) Ask the learners to reflect on the lesson and indicate how they feel about it (slide 10).

5 mins Talk through the next lesson slide (slide 11).

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Year 1 – Moving a robot Lesson plan
Lesson 2 – Directions

Resources are updated regularly — the latest version is available at: ncce.io/tcc.

This resource is licensed under the Open Government Licence, version 3. For more information on this licence, see
ncce.io/ogl.

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