Teaching "Design Thinking for AI" to Explorer mode (ages 5–7)

Hook & Warm-Up

Gather the class on the rug or in a circle so everyone can see each other — this lesson works best as talking, not screens, for the first few minutes.

Say, warmly and with excitement in your voice:

"Before building A.I., you need a GREAT idea! What problem would YOU want to solve? A lost-pet finder? A homework helper? A mood-checker for friends?"

Pause and let that sit for a second — five-year-olds need a moment to picture it. Then ask the room directly: "Has anyone ever lost something and wished a robot friend could help you find it?" Let two or three hands go up and take quick, one-sentence answers. Don't correct or refine their ideas yet — the only goal right now is to get them thinking "I could invent something," not to get a polished answer.

Show your own excitement: "Wow, so many good ideas already! Today we're going to learn the secret first step that EVERY inventor uses — even the people who build AI for a living. Ready?"

Do a quick call-and-response to lock in the mood before moving on. You say: "When I have a problem, the FIRST thing I do is..." and the class finishes with "...think about who has the problem!" (teach them this response ahead of time, or simply model it once and repeat). Do it two or three times, getting louder and sillier each round — this small ritual matters more than it looks like it does, because it turns an abstract idea ("understand the problem first") into something their bodies and voices remember, which is how five- to seven-year-olds actually retain a lesson.

Main Activity

This age band's version of the lesson is a single simple idea told with warmth, not the multi-scene walkthrough older students get. Deliver it as a short story with the class joining in, in three short steps you can comfortably fit into 10-15 minutes of a longer class block.

A note on language: if some students are more comfortable in Filipino than English, feel free to deliver this activity bilingually — switch to Filipino for the follow-up questions and let children answer in whichever language comes naturally. The app itself supports English and Filipino, but this early-grade concept ("think about the problem first") doesn't depend on precise vocabulary in either language, so prioritize getting kids talking over getting them talking in a specific language.

Step 1 — "Find a problem first." Hold up your hand like you're stopping traffic and say: "Before ANY inventor builds ANYTHING — even a robot, even AI — they ask one question first. Not 'what can I build?' but 'what PROBLEM does someone have?'" Give a concrete, silly example: "If I wanted to invent something for recess, I wouldn't just build a robot for no reason. I'd first ask — what's hard about recess? Maybe: it's hard to remember whose turn it is on the swing!" Ask the class: "What's something that's a LITTLE bit hard or annoying at school or at home?" Collect 3-4 answers on the board, even just as pictures or single words (e.g., "lost crayons," "forgetting homework," "can't reach the sink").

Step 2 — "Not everything needs a fancy robot." Pick one of the problems the class named — say "lost crayons." Ask: "Could we fix this WITHOUT any AI or robot at all?" Guide them toward a simple answer: "Yes! A crayon box with each color's own spot!" Say clearly: "See? Sometimes the simple answer is the BEST answer. A.I. isn't always the right tool — sometimes a box, a chart, or just asking a friend works better!" You can repeat this with a second example from the class's list to reinforce the pattern — pick one where the simple fix is less obvious, and let the class work a little harder to find it together, praising any reasonable non-robot answer just as much as a robot one.

Step 3 — "Try it and see." Explain the last idea using a hands-on comparison kids understand: "Imagine you build a paper-airplane. Does it fly perfectly the very first try?" (They'll say no.) "Right! You throw it, see what happens, and fix it. That's exactly what inventors do with A.I. too — try it, see what happens, fix it, try again!" If you have a spare sheet of paper, actually fold a quick paper airplane right there and throw it once in front of the class — a real, slightly wobbly flight makes the point better than describing it, and it gives you a natural line: "See, it didn't fly perfectly! Am I a bad inventor? No! I just try again." This tiny piece of theater is worth the thirty seconds it costs, because it makes "trying again is normal, not a failure" something the class watched happen rather than something they were told.

Close the guided portion by having students open the lesson in the app (or watching you display it) so they see Pixel present the same idea with the four icons — Ideate, Empathize, Define, Build — and hear the story once more in the app's voice, reinforcing what you just modeled live.

A few notes on delivering this to five- to seven-year-olds specifically: keep every example tiny and physical (crayons, swings, snack time, shoelaces) rather than abstract ("efficiency," "systems") — abstract nouns are the fastest way to lose this age group's attention. Expect answers to wander; a child might say their problem is "my dog" rather than something about their dog, and that's fine — gently narrow it with one follow-up question ("what does your dog do that's tricky?") rather than correcting them. If a child suggests "just get a new one" or "ask a grown-up" as their fix instead of inventing something, celebrate that too: recognizing that a problem already has a simple, non-invented solution is exactly the "not everything needs AI" lesson, even if the child doesn't have that language for it yet.

Discussion

• "What's one thing that's a little bit hard or annoying for you at school or at home?"
• "If you wanted to fix that, would you need a robot, or could something simple help too?"
• "Have you ever built or drawn something that didn't work right away? What did you do next?"
• "Why do you think grown-up inventors ask people about their problems BEFORE they start building?"
• "If your first try at fixing something didn't work, would that make you a bad inventor? What would you do instead?"

Keep this discussion short — five minutes is plenty at this age. The goal is simply to get a few voices talking out loud about a real problem and a real (even if imperfect) fix, not to reach a tidy conclusion. If the room gets quiet, offer your own silly example first ("MY problem is I always forget where I put my glasses...") — modeling vulnerability about a real, small problem often unlocks more honest answers than asking cold.

Quiz Walkthrough

In the app, this quiz appears as four multiple-choice questions with pictures, and Explorer mode never scores it as pass/fail — there are no wrong-answer buzzers or red X marks, only Pixel's gentle "let's think about that again" if a child taps something else. If you're running the quiz as a whole-class activity instead of on individual devices, read each question aloud, have children vote by pointing at the answer they think is right (or a show of hands per option), and reveal the answer together rather than calling on one child at a time — this keeps the "not yet, let's try again" spirit even for children who guessed wrong, since nobody is singled out.

Wrap-Up & Extension

Close with: "You just learned the secret every inventor knows — find a REAL problem first, and remember that simple ideas can be just as good as fancy ones! Next time we'll actually start building something."

You'll know the lesson landed if, by the end of class, a child can answer "what do inventors do FIRST?" with something like "find a problem" or "find someone who's stuck" — in their own words, not necessarily the exact phrasing from the app. Don't expect them to define AI, MVP, or testing with adult vocabulary; at this age the goal is the instinct ("think about the problem before you build"), not the terminology, which will come back with proper vocabulary in Builder mode a few years from now.

Extension activity (to fill a full class period): Hand out paper and crayons. Ask each child to draw one problem from the discussion (their own or the class list) on one half of the page, and their simple fix — robot or not — on the other half. Walk around and ask each child to tell you in one sentence what their drawing solves. Display the drawings on a "Little Inventors" board — this doubles as a natural lead-in to the next lesson, where the class starts building something for real.

If time allows, add a second round: after the drawings are done, pair children up and have each one "test" their partner's fix by asking one question about it — "would that really work for the dog?" or "how would the box know which crayon is which?" This is a gentle, age-appropriate introduction to the testing idea from the lesson, framed as friendly curiosity rather than criticism. Remind the class beforehand: "When we test each other's ideas, we're helping, not saying it's wrong — even real inventors need someone to ask them questions!" This keeps the activity aligned with AIQ's "not yet" language rather than "wrong" language, and it plants the seed for the build-test-improve loop that comes back in every later grade band.