How to demonstrate programming to daycare children?

Question

I have been asked of my children's daycare to hold a brief lesson in what I do for a living (we are a co-op so every parent is expected to contribute lessons).I haven't done this before. From my brief research, there seems to be three overarching themes recommended:(1) Pretend to be a computer and have the children "program" you to accomplish some goal. You interpret their instructions literally. (There are variants of this, such as verbal instructions vs pre-written cards.)(2) Have the children be values in an algorithm where they follow simple local operations which then lead to a coordinated global result (think bubble sort, or packet routing.)(3) Bring some technical toy like a Mindstorms robot and program it for them.Do you have any suggestions for activities that fall outside of these categories? Or fun ideas for concrete activities that belong in one of these categories?----I will get help from a kindergarten teacher to nail the specifics from a pedagogical and age-appropriate perspective, so I'm mainly looking for broad strokes.----I'm not a huge fan of bringing a technical toy. I'm concerned at the age of 4--5 the children won't appreciate the marvel of local operations producing global coordination, so I'm leaning toward interpreting instructions literally.The classic is the jelly sandwich, but I've been trying to thinking of things that are easier to clean up. Two other options are "solve an obstacle course" and "knock down bottles with this ball". What are other interesting goals?

ggm · Accepted Answer

I put on a waterproof coat and asked them to control me as a robot filling a jug with water at a tap and pouring out glasses
It was hilariously damp. Then I talked about being more precise in the instructions to move and check and move, or specifying keeping moving UNTIL or UNLESS or WHILE.. or move FOR a number of units.. then had them do similar things with each other like move play do balls around.
You could do maze solving? Or paperts logo robot with a pen and up down and turn instructions. No robot needed! Be the robot you need to be.. or make on with an rpi and kit
With adults I've done construction problems with skewers and potatoes. The point being to teach abstract problem solving and descriptive language skills, which inform reasoning to a heuristic or algorithmic approach to a problem.
Or be the computer behind a slot and accept instructions as ordered decks of cards to do things like move and act.
Half program, half watch and wet themselves laughing as you muck up.
Binary is latent in a lot of play. Kids in lines, hands up or down. Decimating by some binary decision logic.
Towers of Hanoi.
Or.. wait until their 14.