The Botetourt Elementary School library recently received a $500 grant from the American Library Association to help plan and implement coding activities during Computer Science Education Week, Dec. 3-9, and beyond. 

Botetourt was one of 250 school and public libraries around the country to receive this microfunding from Libraries Ready to Code, an initiative of the American Library Association sponsored by Google. 

The grant helped Botetourt librarian Renee Hamilton-Bains hold Google CS First Hour of Code activities for students in after-school sessions this week and last week. 

During a 90-minute session last week, some Botetourt fourth and fifth graders gathered in the library to take on video-based instruction introducing them to coding.

The students were silently engaged with their computer’s instructions as they chose characters and objects to work with, and soon began creating their own stories that had their characters moving and conversing usin...