

Find the Bug: Debugging Warm-Ups for Grades 3–5 is a no-tech computer science resource that gives students repeated, engaging practice tracing, testing, explaining, and fixing broken pseudocode. Designed without dependence on a specific coding platform, it helps students develop practical debugging habits and computational thinking skills through ready-to-use task cards.
The resource includes six PDF files: a six-page Teacher Guide with implementation ideas, questioning scripts, standards alignment, scope and sequence, and a two-week pacing option; a two-page Student Reference featuring a seven-step debugging checklist and Read–Trace–Find–Fix–Test cycle; two pages of Recording Pages for identifying bug types, recording fixes, and tracking progress; 30 debugging task cards; and a 10-page Answer Key with correct solutions, underlying misconceptions, and teacher conferencing notes.
The 30 cards cover six bug types: Sequence, Loop Counting, Loop Conditions, Conditionals, Variables, and Placement. Three difficulty levels provide built-in differentiation, allowing teachers to select tasks appropriate to students’ developing skills.
The cards are flexible enough for bell-ringers, stations, independent or partner work, targeted reteaching, and substitute plans. A single card can be used as a short warm-up, with approximately six minutes of work time, while five cards can form a manageable station rotation. Because the activities require no devices, logins, or specific coding-platform knowledge, they are easy to implement in a variety of classroom settings.
Students learn to trace code step by step, identify and explain errors, modify existing algorithms, test boundary cases, recognize patterns, and explain why a solution works. The debugging checklist reinforces habits such as checking values, starting conditions, order, indentation, stop conditions, and edge cases.
The resource aligns with CSTA standards including 1B-AP-10, 1B-AP-11, 1B-AP-12, 1B-AP-15, and 2-AP-17, while also supporting selected Common Core math and ELA practice standards.
A key feature is the misconception-focused Answer Key, which helps teachers understand why students may make particular errors and provides useful language for conferences and reteaching. The progress tracker also allows students to monitor which bug types they can solve successfully.
Overall, Find the Bug provides a low-prep, device-free way to make debugging a regular part of computer science instruction. Students move beyond guessing by identifying the problem, explaining the reasoning, writing a fix, and testing their solution, building stronger and more transferable debugging skills.
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