Terrapin announces the publication of Bee-Bot Lessons, a collection of 100 lesson plans for using Bee-Bot as a teaching tool. Bee-Bot Lessons was developed by Cristy McBee (no kidding!), a kindergarten teacher in a technology rich laboratory classroom in Rock Springs, WY. Each has been tested and refined by the author and her district colleagues.

Bee-Bot Lessons target pre-K to 2nd grade and cover 10 subject areas including math, science, social studies, reading, and art. Each lesson states its objective, provides implementation instructions, and suggests adaptations for both struggling and advanced students. Each is mapped to standards for its subject.

Bee-Bot Lessons includes a CD of brightly colored images that appeal to young children. Images are matched to each lesson and organized into PDF files that can easily be printed.

In conjunction with Bee-Bot Lessons, Terrapin is introducing the Bee-Bot Card Mat, a 6 by 6 grid with a clear plastic sheet on top. Each square represents one Bee-Bot step. Lift the plastic sheet, place images from Bee-Bot Lessons on the grid, and lower the plastic sheet to lock them in place. With the grid as a guide, students use Bee-Bot to explore the subject or task represented by the images. The combination of Bee-Bot Lessons and Bee-Bot Card Mat provides a powerful teaching environment for using Bee-Bot in the classroom.

Prof. Kathryn Shafer uses Terrapin Logo with preservice teachers at Ball State University in Muncie, IN. Logo is used to teach about polygons, the Pythagorean theorem, and trigonometry. Each student completes a project to demonstrate their mastery of both the math and Logo. This year students created cityscapes, such as the one illustrated here, and recorded the drawing process so you can watch the city being built .

Prof. Shafer believes the use of Logo pushes students toward a deeper understanding of math concepts and reveals the overarching structure of mathematics. "Use of Logo helps them see that testing, conjecturing, hypothesizing, deducting, proving, symbolizing and computing constitute the objectives of mathematics education," she stated, "and prepares them to use a Logo environment with their own future students to impart the same knowledge."

Logo Project Ideas , a section of the Terrapin web site where Logo users post projects, offers interesting examples of how Logo is used. A recent posting by R.J., a home-schooled student in New Mexico and ardent Logo programmer, is a Logo game that illustrates principles of physics.

The Canon-shot project simulates shooting a cannon at a target on the other side of a hill. The cannon angle and power must be set before a shot is fired. Wind speeds vary between shots so settings must be adjusted to compensate. Download Cannon-shot and run it in Terrapin Logo to see how many shots it takes to hit the target. Examine the program for ideas for projects of your own.