Terrapin Resources

About Learning Mats

Terrapin offers over a dozen mats for students to use with Bee-Bots, Blue-Bots, and Pro-Bots. Use these mats with your ‘bots in your classroom on the floor or a large table.

What do students learn using these mats? In addition to practicing the curriculum content they are learning, they are using these key critical thinking skills:

  • Spatial reasoning - When programming the Bee-Bot to move along a mat, students can develop spatial reasoning skills as they plan and execute different movements and turns.
  • Problem-solving skills - As students program the Bee-Bot to move along the mat and encounter obstacles or challenges, they can develop problem-solving skills to overcome these challenges.
  • Collaboration - When working in pairs or small groups, students can collaborate and share ideas on how to program the Bee-Bot to navigate the mat and complete different challenges.

The Learning Mats can be divided into different groups, depending on their purpose.

  • Curriculum Skills Mats allow students to explore and practice math and language arts concepts that are part of their daily lessons.
  • Narrative Mats engage students’ curiosity and creativity as they navigate their ‘bots to tell a story or explore an environment.
  • Specialty Mats are multi-purpose or specific to a particular robot.

You can also explore many of these mats using the online versions of these robots in your browser.