Everything You Need to Ace Computer Science and Coding in One Big Fat Notebook: The Complete Middle School Study Guide

Have you ever wanted to learn coding? This big fat notebook has it all!

I was so excited to receive the newest installment of the Big Fat Notebook STEM series! It did not disappoint! The Everything You Need to Ace Computer Science and Coding in One Big Fat Notebook is an essential companion to the already released Math and Science books.  With key concepts explained through simple but powerful ways such as mnemonic devices, definitions, diagrams, and doodles, Computer Science and Coding helps us understand computer science in a non-threatening way, which is especially crucial in middle school.

This is the first book for a middle school audience that covers both computer science and coding, which are basic skills our Future Ready students need to know. Our students will graduate into a society with jobs that do not currently exist. Learning computer science and coding can seem daunting at first, but this book helps students adapt to and create these new digital literacies like collaboration, logical reasoning, problem solving skills, and perseverance.

My daughter, a tween herself, and I both read this before the official release date and we both were able to learn something new! For me, it taught me valuable ways to explain coding to my middle schoolers and for my daughter, it made learning coding elements even more fun. Combining this book with our homeschool curriculum with code.org has made for some amazing learning experiences! From the perspective as a mom and school media specialist, one of my favorite aspects of this book is that it models to our youth how to effectively write and organize notes on their own and engages our middle school students with its' 'note-writing' format. 

As a school library media specialist and a leader in the MakerSpace movement in our learning community, I truly believe every library should have this book on our shelves for students.

What's included in this book?

• Computing systems
• Binary code
• Algorithms
• Computational thinking
• Loops, events, and procedures
• Programming in Scratch and Python
• Boolean Expressions
• Web development
• Cybersecurity
• HTML
• CSS
• …and more!

 
If using this book in the classroom, it will help you meet Computer Science Standards, Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards. Grant Smith, the author of Everything You Need to Ace Computer Science and Coding in One Big Fat Notebook is a computer science guru and is the VP of Education for Code Ninjas, the largest growing coding franchise for kids. He has helped write curriculum for Girl Scouts, codeSpark, code.org, and the  Computer Science Teachers Association.

This post has been sponsored by Workman Publishing, but all opinions are mine alone.

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Check out the awesome graphics and color coding below!