Welcome to Mini Coder
Games, puzzles and projects for every pupil at Hubert Ogunde Memorial School, from your first day in Nursery to your last term in Grade 6.
Your coding journey
Every pupil follows the same path: lots of play first, then ideas get names, then you build real things. Tap a stop to jump straight there.
The Play Patch
Before we touch a screen, we play. Following instructions, spotting patterns and sorting things into groups are exactly the skills coders use every day, we just call them games for now.
Builders’ Bench
This is where the games meet the screen. Pupils snap together colourful blocks to make characters move, talk and react, and start explaining what their project will do before they run it.
The Thinking Lab
By Grade 4, pupils have been sequencing, looping and sorting for years, they just haven’t had the words for it. This is where we name the ideas properly.
Sequence
Steps that happen one after another, in order.
Loop
Repeating the same steps again and again.
Conditional
If this happens, then do that instead.
Algorithm
A full set of instructions for solving one problem.
The Maker Studio
Theory becomes practice. Pupils plan a project on paper, then build it, test it and show it off. Here’s the kind of thing that comes out of the studio each term.
Chase game
Grade 5 · Scratch projectMy first web page
Grade 6 · HTML/CSSQuiz script
Grade 6 · Python basicsThe AI Zone
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. It means a computer program that has been shown thousands of examples so it can spot patterns and make good guesses, a bit like how you get better at recognising your friend’s handwriting the more you see it. AI isn’t alive and it doesn’t have feelings, it’s a very clever pattern-spotter that people have taught.
The Robotics Lab
A robot is a machine that can sense the world, think about what to do, and then act, without a person controlling every single move. Every robot needs three main parts:
- 1Sensors, the robot’s eyes and ears. They gather information like light, sound or distance.
- 2A controller, the robot’s brain. It decides what to do with what the sensors picked up.
- 3Actuators, the robot’s muscles: motors, wheels or arms that actually move.
Inside a Laptop & PC
A laptop packs everything into one folding case. A desktop PC splits the same jobs across a separate monitor, tower and keyboard, but they’re doing exactly the same things underneath.
- 1Screen / monitor, shows you what the computer is doing.
- 2Keyboard, how you type letters and numbers in.
- 3Trackpad / mouse, how you point and click.
- 4Camera, lets the computer see you for video calls.
- 5Tower / CPU (on a desktop PC), the “brain box” that does the thinking, kept inside a laptop’s case.
Explore more
A few more topics worth knowing about, tap a card to open it up.
World Explorer: Geography basics ▼
Geography is the study of our world: the land, the water, the countries and the people living in them.
- The world has 7 continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica and Oceania.
- The world has 5 oceans: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Arctic.
- Our school is in Akute, Ogun State, part of Nigeria, which sits on the continent of Africa.
- Nigeria’s capital city is Abuja, and English is the official language.
Information vs Data ▼
Data is small facts on their own, like numbers or single words: 7, 9, blue, Monday. On their own they don’t tell you much.
Information is what you get once data has been organised so it actually means something, like: “Three friends scored 7, 9 and 10 in Monday’s quiz, everyone did brilliantly!”
So: data becomes information once someone sorts it, counts it, or explains it.
Every lesson is led by Mr Emmanuel
Our coding lessons are taught in person every week, this page is where you play, revise and show your family what you have been building.
Story time
Twelve short tech-themed stories for the whole family. Press play and a story is read aloud, each one requesting a different accent where your device has it installed, or just read it together.
Playback uses your device’s built-in text-to-speech voices. Each story asks for a different accent (British, American, Australian, Indian, South African or Nigerian English); which ones are actually available depends on the voices installed on your device or browser.
Writing prompts
Stuck for an idea? Pick your level and get a prompt to write about.
Loading a prompt…
See all writing prompts ▼
Junior:
Senior:
Quiz time
Pick your level and see how many you can get right. You can play as many times as you like.
Want more brain games?
Try the Bank Holiday Brain Splash, 30 questions covering Science, Technology, General Knowledge and English.
A note for parents
Mini Coder mirrors our in-class curriculum: play in the early years, named concepts from Grade 4, and hands-on projects in Grade 5 and 6. Watch out for each grade’s showcase at the end of term, that’s where you’ll see exactly what your child has built.