Preschool Computational Thinking

Lola Goes to School

Summary

Problem decomposition is one way to make problems easier or faster to solve. This activity provides an introduction to problem decomposition, which involves breaking a BIG problem or task into SMALLER, easier parts. Children will listen as you read Lola Goes to School and work together to identify the BIG task of getting ready for school and the smaller parts that are involved in Lola’s routine. As children break down Lola’s routine, they will have opportunities to count and compare the number of smaller parts.

Activity Steps

Explain and define problem decomposition

Problem decomposition is breaking a BIG problem or task down into SMALLER parts. This can make those bigger, more complex problems or tasks easier to solve or help us solve them faster.

Read Lola Goes to School or another book about school routines. As you read, pause and identify the different (smaller) things that Lola or the main character does to get ready for school (big task). Summarize with children after they make observations.

In the story Lola Goes to School, Lola packs her bag and chooses her clothes. What else does she do? What is happening in these pictures? Did you notice that she eats breakfast and her mom combs her hair?

Generate a graphic organizer based on the book. Draw a big blue circle (BIG task) on the top of the poster. Invite children to identify the big task that Lola wanted to complete. Draw smaller green circles (SMALLER tasks) below the big blue circle. Encourage children to share the smaller tasks that Lola did to get ready for school. See example below. Some guiding questions may include:

What is the BIG task that Lola wanted to complete?
Can we break the BIG task of getting ready for school into SMALLER parts? We saw a few things that Lola did to get ready for school- what did you notice?
[Optional] Draw even smaller orange circles (SMALLEST tasks circles) below each green circle: Now, let’s think about whether these SMALLER parts can be broken down even more. Are there SMALLER parts to this task? What do you do when [brushing your teeth]?

Once complete, review the poster and engage in math talk (see examples):

We put the BIG task in the biggest circle – what is that task?
How many SMALLER parts did we break our BIG task into?
Which of our SMALLER tasks has the most parts? How many parts does it have?

In this activity, children will engage in:

Computational Thinking

Break a complicated/bigger problem into a set of easier/more solvable sub-problems, before working to solve them

Mathematics

Count objects (one to one correspondence)
The last number counted represents how many (cardinality)
Compare quantities (more/less)

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