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Bringing Playful STEAM Learning to Homeless Children

This KIBO use study comes from Horizons for Homeless Children located in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Horizons for Homeless Children is the Commonwealth’s leading organization devoted to serving homeless children, focusing on helping young children mitigate the trauma and stress associated with homelessness.

Building, Coding, Creating, and Exploring with KIBO

Through a partnership with Dr. Marina Bers, our co-founder, and the director of Boston College’s DevTech Research Group, and KinderLab Robotics, Horizons for Homeless Children has brought the screen-free KIBO robot into their center to provide their young learners with access to STEM technology. Coding and computer science is a new literacy for the 21st century and supports young learners in developing new ways of thinking about themselves and the world. Young children living in poverty or experiencing homelessness can benefit from this early introduction of science and technology.

Horizons for Homeless Children with KIBO

Horizons for Homeless Children’s CEO, Kate Barrand, says “Changing the trajectory of children’s lives begins with building dreams and opening children’s minds to opportunities they may not see in their immediate surroundings. Children living in poverty can dream about a career as an astronaut, computer programmer, scientist or inventor when they experience engaging STEM curriculum in school.”

For more than a year, KIBO has been a part of the curriculum at Horizons for Homeless Children. The fun and creative hands-on robot that introduces coding, now resides in their Hawk Foundation STEM lab where children develop their STEM learning, problem solving skills, collaboration, and playful exploration.

One teacher stated, “Children who typically would not work with peers and would rather work solo, changed while playing with KIBO. They began to express how they wanted to work together, and they began solving problems together.

Findings – Proven Success of Playful STEM Learning

With KIBO and their STEM curriculum, Horizons for Homeless Children are seeing skill growth amongst students and teachers. Click here to read more about this program’s success. The DevTech Research Group has studied the impact of their young learners and their educators using KIBO.

For teachers, their findings showed a 47% increase in their self-reported understanding of the curriculum and confidence in facilitating its implementation in the classroom. The curriculum brought coding and robotics to students using storytelling, literacy, and music.

Horizons for Homeless Children Teacher Findings Image

Students were tested at the beginning and then at the end of the curriculum and results showed that, for many students, their knowledge of coding increased. According to the research report, after participating in the curriculum, 48% of the 35 students stayed in the Pre-Coding stage, but 52% students improved one or two stages, with half of those students moving to the Emergent stage and the other half moving to the Coding and Decoding stage.

Horizons for Homeless Children Students Findings Image

Download the Case Study

Download the Horizons of Homeless Children’s Use Study, Building, Coding, Creating, and Exploring with KIBO, as well as the DevTech Research Group’s research findings, to learn more about this program’s success.


Meet KIBO, the Screen-free Educational STEAM Robot

KIBO, the learning robot designed specifically for elementary-aged kids, offers an inviting, engaging platform for young children to start their journey into creating with code in a fun and creative way. KIBO’s block-based coding language gives children control over the robot’s movements, sounds, and sensors, allowing them to express their imaginations with code. The KIBO curriculum for educators also teaches children to tell stories, create characters, and explore the world around them through code. KIBO is the number one choice in screen-free coding for kids – trusted by more parents and schools to introduce today’s youth to the wonders of technology and robotics.

Archive

Bringing Playful STEAM Learning to Homeless Children

This KIBO use study comes from Horizons for Homeless Children located in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Horizons for Homeless Children is the Commonwealth’s leading organization devoted to serving homeless children, focusing on

Children with KIBO

4 Things Young Kids Should Know About AI

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Three kids collaborating with KIBO

Why Teach About AI in Early Childhood?

It seems like questions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) are everywhere in the news − and in education. Educators worry about students using programs like ChatGPT to do their work for

The Role of Arts in STEAM Education

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Screen-free Coding and Makerspaces in School

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Exploring Floor Maps with KIBO Robotics

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Views from the Classroom: STREAM Education

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Arts and Engineering with #KIBOCostume

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Congresswoman Clark codes with KIBO

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Educators getting hands-on with KIBO: New video!

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The rising need for STEM skills

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Getting funding for technology in the classroom

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Join KIBO next week at Imajine That Academy!

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Brown Bear, Brown Bear: What Can You Code?

It’s National Robotics Week and to get everybody in the spirit, we thought we’d share a fun video about how our own robot kit – KIBO – has been used in the Kennedy-Longfellow Elementary School in

Fun with robots at the Women Veterans’ Spring Fling

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A case for continuous Kinder-innovation

Studies have shown that consistent investment in the education of younger children is beneficial to overall human capital. One study, by Nobel Prize winner James Heckman, referenced on the National

Local feedback: KIBO’s big Massachussetts move

KIBO was born and raised in Massachusetts. From the research labs of the DevTech research group at Tufts University, to the basements of our Arlington homes and now toour first KinderLab Robotics’ manufacturing headquarters

Why should four year-olds learn to program?

Coding is a new literacy. We teach children to read and write because it opens new doors for them, gives them new ways to think about the world and offers new ways to express

A few facts you may not know about Route 128

Not familiar with Route 128? It’s an iconic area outside Boston that is steeped in technology history as the home to some of the world’s most innovative and influential technology

KIBO heads to the big retail show in New York City

As we speak, KIBO is working the floor at retail’s big show. Held by The National Retail Federation, the largest retail federation in the world, the show is the 104th annual ‘Retail’s BIG Show’.

Sharing a KIBO – and sharing our mission

If you don’t follow us on social media yet (you can sign up to talk with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) then you’ve missed a chance to win a free KIBO. Our lucky winner

KIBO: Not just child-friendly but adult-friendly too

We recently conducted an in-person survey of parents, teachers and family members gauging their attitudes toward young children and coding. We found that almost two thirds, 65%, of those we spoke to considered it

KIBO: Good Old-Fashioned Play Meets Cute Robot

I don’t just have a personal fascination with robots, I’ve made a career of them. My technical career started at Honeywell Systems working on night vision applications in the late 1970s

KinderLab gets down to business – with robots

Being based in Boston, one of the world’s largest tech hubs, certainly has its perks. Last week, the KinderLab Robotics team grabbed KIBO and ventured out to the RoboBusiness conference, being held at the

Support for KIBO

Here at KinderLab Robotics, it’s been an amazing trip. From our successful Kickstarter launch, setting up the manufacturing of KIBO in Massachusetts, launching our online store, and attending events –