Happy Back to School Season!! Let’s start off the year with some hands-on, screen-free coding! Kids will love the challenge of this Back to School Bus Color by Coding Coloring Page. It uses ASCII binary and decimal codes as the key to the colors. Read on to get the free printable and to learn more how we’re exploring STEAM this year.
What is Coding?
There’s a lot of talk today about coding being the language of the future. But what exactly is it and why is it important? Coding makes it possible for us to tell computers how to do stuff, like run our phone, play a video game, and make a website. Any app you use on your phone or computer is possible because of code.
Computers speak the languages of zeroes and ones, essentially on and off signals to computer parts called transistors. These zeroes and ones have been translated into codes called the ASCII Binary code where every letter, number and character has an 8 digit combination of zeroes and ones. ASCII is the most common format for text files for computers and the internet. It stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange and uses numbers to represent letters and special characters. The binary version uses only zeros and ones in a 8 bit (or digit) pattern.
But it would take FOREVER to do anything if we had to anything in just zeroes and ones, so computers use other languages now, that are all based upon binary. But for today’s activity, we’re going to design with where it all started, binary.
Back to School Bus Color by Coding Coloring Page Supplies Needed
You don’t need much for this learning activity. And that makes it a perfect budget time filler in class or at home.
- Back to School Bus Color by Coding printable (See below for printable instructions.)
- Paper
- Printer
- Art supplies like markers, crayons, or colored pencils
- Ruler (optional, but a ruler can help kids grab the right code on the ASCII code list)
FREE! BACK TO SCHOOL BUS
COLOR BY CODING
SCREEN-FREE CODING
ACTIVITY PRINTABLE!
How to Color by Code
If the kids have ever done a color by number page, they’re half way there to figuring this out. Except they have to decipher which color goes with each number. And the way they will do it is with computer code called ASCII. Depending upon their ability levels, kids will find the codes in either the Binary or Decimal columns on the ASCII sheet and figure out which letter corresponds to the code. Then enter that letter on the color code sheet until they’ve spelled out the colors. Then they can color away!
I’ve included everything you need to have an independent STEM learning session in class or at home. The printable includes:
- Back to School Bus Coloring Page
- Answer key
- ASCII binary and decimal decipher the color code page
- ASCII code sheet
- Teacher guide
- What’s the STEAM Behind It? background learning page
More Color by Coding Every Month
Did you know that our STEAM Explorers series of activity books includes a color by coding printable in every edition? It’s just one
Looking for some more STEAM inspiration that you can use right now? Instant gratification style? Check out STEAM Explorers!! The coolest creative experience for kids is here! It's a digital book of the month club filled with tons of fun stuff for the kids to do and learn. All engineer, teacher, and mom-approved. And most definitely KID APPROVED!
What’s included?
- A monthly digital magazine with cool themes that are fun to read
- Hands-on, exciting projects the kids will love.
- Science, tech, engineering, art, and math learning YOU’LL love.
- Delicious recipes the kids can make.
- Fun printables and games
Get ready to have some festive fun in this month's STEAM Explorers Weather issue!
Join us as we explore the weather all around us for the STEAM Explorers Weather EBook Unit Study!! Kids will love creating weather in a jar, capturing the daily forecast in an art journal, and becoming a meteorologist with DIY tools. You'll love the helpful standards-based learning, printables, and tools that make STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, & math) exploration easy!
We’ve split the STEAM Explorers Weather issue into four weekly themes:
WEEK 1: EXPLORE WEATHER
WEEK 2: MEASURE WEATHER
WEEK 3: CONSERVE WEATHER
WEEK 4: MIMIC WEATHER
More Coding Activities for Kids
Or maybe you’re more here for the coding than the coloring! Then these activities are totally for you.
Hour of Code: Be sure to check out this amazing coding resource from Code.org. They’re great for Computer Science week AND all year round.
FREE! BACK TO SCHOOL BUS
COLOR BY CODING
SCREEN-FREE CODING
ACTIVITY PRINTABLE!
