More Scratch Jr projects

I’ve been teaching more Scratch Jr sessions for 1st graders this year already. In addition to the projects I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve enjoyed the more creative, interactive storytelling the students have been making in Scratch Jr.

Shape character

I challenged the students to make an animated scene using their own artwork. And I challenged them to make their art using the shape tools only. And they rose to the challenge and created great scenes using (mostly) all shapes and all of their own drawing.

Scratch Jr Shapes projects

The next skill I wanted to introduce was transition from one scene to the next. I do a robotics project with 1st graders each year where the students design a robot to solve a problem – like cleaning their room, filling their water bottle, brushing their hair, going to the jungle, etc. Then they build the robot with Legos on a meeperBot base. Once built, we have a helperbot melee, driving the robots around the classroom. Super fun. So I thought to combine the robot design with a Scratch Jr project. Scene one where they state the problem they need a robot to help with. Next a scene with their robot design. And a final scene with the robot accomplishing the task.

My grocery-getter helperbot in Scratch Jr.

They did the brainstorming and drawing of their robot character in Scratch on one day. The project was fun and the students were being super creative with robots going to space, doing their math homework, cleaning their hamster cage or brushing their teeth. Then it got interrupted and delayed. In the end when we got back to it, we ended up building and driving the robots all in one day and moved on. We did not get to go back to finish or share the Scratch Jr projects.

I’m hoping the K & 1st-grade students will do more storytelling with Scratch Jr. during the coming months. My goto teaching project list now includes:

1. Intro Animation
2. Speed race
3. My Family
4. Meet and Greet
5. Repeat
6. Shapeland
7. My Robot

2021 Courage

2021 is here and I’ve already had my first Library Code Club, but only one student showed up. I have to say, it is discouraging but not really unexpected. First day back after two weeks off, a Monday and during a pandemic. Fortunately, I have other coding activities on the horizon, which is encouraging. So I soldier on.

Keep the Shark Safe from the plastic pollution https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/469352931/

The lesson today in Creative Coders was our first from the new series of projects from Code Club called Protect our Planet. I presented Save the shark. My one student was willing to share his screen so I walked him through the game. He did a great job following directions and working with the code, testing it and making it near impossible to play, on purpose. He had a pretty decent game that I think he was happy with. He did not have a Scratch account and we had trouble logging him in, so I don’t have his game to share.

One key concept to understand in this project is the coordinate system of the stage. Thinking about the shark only moving along the x-axis (fixed y) and the food/trash moving along the y-axis (random, fixed x). The other is the idea of cloning. It is a powerful bit of coding. At one testing stage we hadn’t added the “delete the clone” code and the plastic started piling up at the bottom of the stage. “Just like the real ocean.” was his comment. We chatted about making a plastic eating robot shark game to “save the ocean”. That would be a fun twist on this project. I would definitely present this project again.

Other things that are coming are: 1) 4th grade Code Club – a joint, virtual adventure with a new coaching partner, 2) piloting a #gettingunstuck curriculum in 4th grade (super excited about this!!!), and 3) a new round of #scratchpals. So that should keep me going through the winter.