A Code-Free Pedagogy for Vietnamese Primary Computational Thinking: Design Principles and Activity Taxonomy for Python Pathway Volume 0

Python Pathway Volume 0 is a textbook for Vietnamese Grade 3–5 learners (ages 8–11) that teaches computational thinking without any programming language, visual programming environment, or screen-based activity. It is positioned as open-enrollment literacy reading and as optional prefeeder to the gifted competitive-programming track served by the subsequent Python Pathway volumes. This paper synthesises the K-5 computational thinking (CT) literature to produce (a) a seven-category taxonomy of unplugged activities, (b) a chapter-level pedagogy specification that maps the taxonomy onto seven Vol 0 chapters, (c) a cross-walk from the taxonomy onto Spine-Cluster milestones L1 (pattern recognition) and L2 (abstraction), and (d) Vietnamese cultural adaptation guidance. The design draws on Brennan-Resnick's CT practices axis, the Bell-Witten-Fellows CS Unplugged corpus, Papert and KafaiResnick constructionism, the CSTA 2017 and ISTE K-5 standards, and the Valle 2023 unplugged-CT meta-analysis. Core design commitments are: intrinsic cognitive load bounded at 3– 4 simultaneously active constructs per step; concrete physical or drawn representations with symbolic abstraction reserved for the terminal chapter reflection; iterative revision with peer-playtest enforced in the integrative Chapter 7 project; explicit bridging reflection mandatory in every chapter; narrative anchoring in Vietnamese domestic and school contexts; and structural alignment with MOET Circular 32/2018 without strict dependency. The paper's contribution is not a novel activity but a principled selection and sequencing rule set that discriminates between effective unplugged CT activities and decorative classroom games — the recurring failure mode identified by the Lye-Koh 2014 review and the Bell-Vahrenhold 2018 retrospective. Six open questions are flagged for sub-project Vòng 2+ execution.