Alabama Digital Literacy and Computer Science: 4th Grade
- Level Elementary School
- Number of Lessons 36
- Grade 4th
This course is designed to provide computer science instruction for Alabama 4th grade students. Students learn programming and principles of computer science including: computing systems, research, algorithms and programming, and computer safety.
See the full syllabus for all topics and activities, or explore the course to try it out.
UNITS - 12 (36 lessons)
Students review CodeHop basics, computer science vocabulary, and the coordinate plane.
Students explore computing systems and troubleshooting and use computational thinking to design a school.
Students use events, compare algorithms, pair program a band, and use broadcast messages.
Students use loops to build a catch-the-ball game and debug maze programs.
Students use conditionals and comparison operators to build an underwater program, a drawing app, and game mechanics.
Students track points with variables, build a spelling bee game with lists, and display data in a bar graph.
Students create animations with clones and build functions with boolean inputs.
Students build a Click-a-Mole game and design accessible digital tools.
Students build keyboarding skills, explore impacts of computing, respond to cyberbullying, and create a healthy screen time plan.
Students practice secure online habits, solve ciphers, explore file storage, and model how information travels in packets.
Students credit online sources and evaluate data for reliability.
Students compare machine learning approaches, weigh the pros and cons of generative AI, and create and test AI prompts.
Explore a sample lesson from this course!
4th grade students build programs using algorithms, events, loops, conditionals, variables, lists, clones, and functions, with projects like pair programming a band, a drawing app, a spelling bee game, and a Click-a-Mole game. They also practice secure online habits and cryptography, learn how information travels in packets, respond to cyberbullying, evaluate data, and explore machine learning, generative AI, and how to write effective AI prompts.
The course includes 36 lessons, each about 45 minutes long, providing a full year of instruction. Every lesson is built in a ready-to-teach format, with step-by-step videos that walk students through the lesson. Lessons are designed to be teacher-led using an "I do, we do, you do" format, and a self-paced option is also available. Many digital literacy lessons include unplugged activities with printable handouts. Optional review lessons at the start of the course can help students who are new to CodeHop and are not counted in the 36 lessons. Concepts spiral across grade levels, so students build on what they learned even if not every lesson is completed in a single year.
No. There are no prerequisites, and the course is designed to support all learners regardless of prior computer science experience. Optional review lessons at the start of the course help students who are new to CodeHop learn the basics before moving into 4th grade content.
Programming units teach block-based coding through games and projects, while digital literacy units cover computing and society, systems and security, research and data, and artificial intelligence. An ongoing keyboarding program helps students build typing skills throughout the year.
Alabama Digital Literacy and Computer Science: 4th Grade is aligned to the Alabama Digital Literacy and Computer Science standards. Lessons required to fully meet the standards are identified in the course syllabus, and additional lessons support review, practice, and enrichment.
