[plt-scheme] DrScheme & 3rd grade

My 3rd grader Alexander came home with homework I was to do with  
him:  two different games of multiplication bingo, each with a  
slightly different kind of card deck.  I read the instructions and  
realized we'd spend 30-60 minutes making two card decks and four  
answer sheets with grids, and that we'd probably throw the cards  
away.  So instead, we made virtual cards with DrScheme, writing the  
program together.  That took about 15 minutes, and Alexander seemed  
to understand what I was doing at each step.  Parentheses don't scare  
kids.

When we played the game, he liked that the game played faster.  We  
could tell the computer to pick 2 cards for his turn or mine, and  
when we ran out of cards, the computer started a new deck for us.   
Speed of play was the value for him.

The value for me was not having to cut up, label, and then store or  
throw out 60 cards.

He understood right away that we could play game 2 by making a slight  
change to game 1.  I thought, "Great! What a nice way to show the  
time-saving nature of computers for problem solving."  He was  
impressed, but not that much, like "Duh!", even though he'd never  
written a program before.

Geoffrey
--
Geoffrey S. Knauth | http://knauth.org/gsk