I've taught basic programming to kids and in these cases it's always nice
to have a metaphor with candy. So: Halloween.
def Halloween:
plan costume
get in costume
go outside
for house on street:
walk to house
ring doorbell
get candy
say thank you
If you've already taught if statements, you can do if trick: run away
screaming, else: take candy
You can also add a candy_count variable to the loop.
Might be too silly for adults, but thought I'd share it anyway.
On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 8:25 AM, Steve Haddock <hadd...@mbari.org> wrote:
> I use a shopping basket and then `for item in basket`. The fact that the
> item could be a single thing or a carton of eggs (=list), which could also
> be looped through, helps.
> I think the point about not using `egg` as the variable name is extremely
> import. If you say `for line in myfile` they think `line` is a magic word
> that grabs a line and `word` or `letter` would act differently.
> The main conceptual hang up seems to be how the variable gets reassigned
> each time.
> It is also not "proper convention" and freaks out CS people, but I like to
> capitalize the variable names, so it is easier to distinguish special
> Python words from arbitrary names.
> -Steve
> ----- q•b -----
>
>
> > On Dec 3, 2015, at 01:24, Karin Lagesen <karin.lage...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > The more I teach, the more I realize that I am not really able to convey
> what a for loop does to everybody. Do any of you have a metaphor or
> something that you use for teaching it? I explain about variables and
> collections, and the body of the loop, and I show examples, but I am still
> not able to get through all the time.
> >
> > Karin
> >
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