🧑🏾🤝🧑🏾 day plan
The agenda and activities for our first day together
✍🏽 Register
Energiser!
Learning Objectives
Energisers are a big part of CYF’s culture! Even as adults, we all feel a bit shy and uncertain when we join a new group. But when we let ourselves be silly together, we start to feel more at home.
Here follows one energiser for in-person and one for online.
🗂️ Options
Zip Zap Boing
Zip Zap Boing!
Learning Objectives
👉 Zip Zap Boing Gameplay
In a single group, have participants stand in a circle. This game works best with 5 or more players and must be played in person.
Make your zipzapper
Press your hands together in front of you, palms facing each other to make your energy zipzapper. Crackle! Feel the energy between your hands!
Point your zipzapper to the person next to you, and say “Zip”.
Point your zipzapper at anyone in the circle and say “Zap”.
Now, put both hands up in the air, jump, and say “Boing!” This reverses the direction of play.
Play the game
One person starts by saying “Zip” and pointing to another person in the circle. That person then has three options:
- Zip the person on your left or right.
- Zap anyone in the circle.
- Boing the energy back to them, which reverses the direction of play.
The game continues with players reacting quickly to keep the energy flowing.
If someone hesitates or makes a mistake, they’re out.
Evolve the game
Add variations to increase complexity and challenge
- Round 2: Add a new word “Zop” which skips the next person in the circle
- Round 3: Players must use a different gesture for each word (e.g., point for Zip, thumbs up for Zap, jazz hands for Boing)
- Round 4: Increase the speed - anyone who takes more than 2 seconds to respond is out
Popcorn Show and Tell
Popcorn Show and Tell
Learning Objectives
A quick introduction to popcorning where participants spontaneously “pop up” to share.
Facilitator grab something close to you and show it to the group. What is interesting about this object? What does it mean to you?
- After sharing, say “popcorn to…” and choose someone else.
- That person shares their response, then popcorns to another participant.
Continue until everyone has shared once or you run out of time.
![!TIP] If everyone puts their hand up and then put it down after speaking, it’s easier to see who hasn’t shared yet.
🎡 Morning orientation
Learning Objectives
Planning during the week
👣 Steps
If you haven’t done so already, choose someone (volunteer or trainee) to be the facilitator for this morning orientation block. Choose another to be the timekeeper.
🎙️ The Facilitator will:
- Assemble the entire group (all volunteers & all trainees) in a circle
- Briefly welcome everyone with an announcement, like this:
💬 “Morning everyone, Welcome to CYF {REGION}, this week we are working on {MODULE} {SPRINT} and we’re currently working on {SUMMARISE THE TOPICS OF THE WEEK}”
- Ask any newcomers to introduce themselves to the group, and welcome them.
- Now check: is it the start of a new module? Is it sprint 1? If so, read out the success criteria for the new module.
- Next go through the morning day plan only (typically on the curriculum website) - and check the following things:
Facilitator Checklist
- Check the number of volunteers you have for the morning
- Check someone is leading each session
- Describe how any new activities works for the group
- Decide how best to allocate trainees and volunteers for a given block - most blocks will make this clear
⏰ The Timekeeper will:
- Announce the start of an activity and how long it will take (check everyone is listening)
- Manage any whole class timers that are used in an activity
- Give people a 10-minute wrap-up warning before the end of an activity
- Announce the end of an activity and what happens next
Youtube: Welcome to Code Your Future 🔗
Learning as a community
Learning Objectives
At CYF, we learn as a community.
In this session, we’re going to describe how we harness our community to learn together.
Resources
The facilitator will make a copy of this presentation 👉 Learning as a community presentation or set the same thing up on a physical board with sticky notes.
Preparation
- Facilitator: Review how this works and the Miro board Learning as a community before class.
- Facilitator: Split the class into groups of no more than 5.
- Facilitator: Ensure everyone can access the board if you are online.
- Facilitator: Make sure every group has access to sticky notes and pens if you are in person.
Introduction
The facilitator will use the Miro board presentation to guide trainees and volunteers on a discussion about how we learn together as a community.
Morning Break
A quick break of fifteen minutes so we can all concentrate on the next piece of work.
Blockers!
Learning Objectives
🚗 Traffic Jam Gameplay
In groups or breakout rooms of 4 trainees maximum.
One person will share their screen and be the driver. The driver can only move the pieces where you are told by the navigators. The driver cannot make any decisions!
The others will be the navigators. Together, the navigators must figure out a strategy to unblock the car, and tell the driver how to do it!
Each person must drive so set a timer for and then swap.
You can do this energiser in person, online, or a mix of both. You can play this completely offline using this kit: Rush Hour.
Start on Level 6 or above and get everyone to load the page before you go into breakout rooms/groups. Put your adblocker on!
Facilitator Check in questions
Model ways of thinking about the game strategically instead of just trying stuff randomly
- Which car is the blocker? Everyone guess!
- What shall we do first?
- What do you notice about the cars? Are they different sizes?
- What do you notice about the board? What does this mean for our choices?
- Is it frustrating being the driver?
- Are we there yet? Shall we play another round?
- What one thing shall we say we noticed about this game, back in the main room?
Evolve the game
Evolve the game each time you play to guide the players to insights
- Round 2: You must discuss for 1 minute before you make any moves
- Round 3: A single navigator can make no more than three moves in one go
- Round 4: Try to solve the puzzle in as few moves as you can
More resources
- Backup alternative online game
- Physical version of this game
Community Lunch
Every Saturday we cook and eat together. We share our food and our stories. We learn about each other and the world. We build community.
This is everyone’s responsibility, so help with what is needed to make this happen, for example, organising the food, setting up the table, washing up, tidying up, etc. You can do something different every week. You don’t need to be constantly responsible for the same task.
Sharing Our Blockers
Learning Objectives
We call problems that stop our progress “blockers”. We talk through our blockers regularly and help each other get “unblocked” or “unstuck”.
Sharing Our Blockers
Join the online board or grab some sticky notes. Add your blockers.
Make sure to add only one blocker per note.
Facilitator Once everyone has added their blockers, group similar blockers together.
Facilitator Next, discuss the blockers and help each other get “unblocked”. Start with the most common blocker and work your way down the list.
Hints and Tips
Example Blockers
- I can’t find a Slack channel people keep mentioning.
- People tell me I should be replying to a Slack message in a thread, and I don’t know how.
- I can’t open a PR, because…
- How do I fix extra stray files in my PR?
- I don’t have a computer so I can’t complete my work!
- How do I run Lighthouse?
- Everyone should have blockers. If you aren’t blocked on anything in the course, do you need to challenge yourself more?
- Ask “stupid” questions. Your question is not stupid! What we are doing is hard, and everyone has questions. If you’re stuck, it’s likely that someone else is too. Please help others and ask your question!
- If you have other more advanced questions, do write them on the board but don’t expect to answer them in Blockers. We will work on those in study group.
Afternoon Break
Please feel comfortable and welcome to pray at this time if this is part of your religion.
If you are breastfeeding and would like a private space, please let us know.
Next steps 👣
Learning Objectives
For trainees
In this section, you have a set of questions/tasks to orient you towards what is coming next in the course.
Pair up with a new person. In pairs, complete the following tasks:
⚠️ Warning
If you’re unsure about the answer to any of the questions below, start a thread in Slack to clarify the answer (unless there is already a thread discussing this matter).
- Starting from the home page of this website, locate the setup page and the prep page for sprint 1 of the next module.
- List the things you need to install (if anything) for the upcoming module.
- Check you can find the backlog page for the next sprint. Double check you’ve copied all the issues from the backlog over to your Course Planner.
- Double check you’ve copied all the issues from the backlog over to your Course Planner.
- Identify all the issues with 🔑 icon that are marked as Priority. What does the Priority icon 🔑 mean?
- When ⏰ should you start the prep work for the upcoming module?
- Experiment with your project planner: can you filter by Size, Sprint, or other fields?
For volunteers
- Locate the planning board for your region (if one exists)
- Locate the day-plan for the next module
- Check the instructions and links on the Priority 🔑 issues for the upcoming week ( both Tech Ed and PD )
- In the day-plan for the upcoming week identify the instructions for any workshops and visit the repository containing that readme. Check the instructions make sense.
Wrap
You are done for the day. Take a moment to reflect on what you have learned and achieved.
Stand in a circle and share:
- 📛 your name
- 💪🏽 one thing you achieved today
- 👷🏾 the task you are going to work on next
- 🛟 one thing you need help with
Give yourselves a round of applause. Now you have earned your rest. Usually people go for a cup of tea or a pint after class. You are welcome to join and wind down together.