12th Code Club Starts

I started my 12th session of 4th-grade Code Club last week.  Just like last year, we are going to start off with Snack Discussion. During this first meeting I went over my expectations, rules, and plans for our future meetings:

Meeting #	Meeting topic outline
1	First meeting – Rules & goals, intro to Scratch
2	Ist learning project
3	2nd learning project
4	3rd learning project
5	4th learning project, begin designing your own project
6	Design review
7	Begin individual/pair project
8	Continue work on individual projects
9	Finish work on projects
10	Showcase of projects – Parents invited!

Then I asked them what their goals for Code Club were.  What did they want to learn – because I can present lessons that help them meet their goals.

What my Code Club wants to learn to make with Scratch

For some, they just want to learn to make Sprites move around using the arrow keys. Others want to make something like a Fortnite or Surviv.io Battle Royale game.  I told them I wouldn’t allow any first-person shooters and I have a general ban on weapons (although I have made the occasional exception for a toilet paper cannon, and a laser gun for shooting blobs).  My 7th-grade helper helped me out by describing the work it would take to “code” the whole landscape of Surviv.io Battle Royale and generally expressing his opinion that it would take too much work to do something of that scale.

I have two former Code Club members as helpers in this session.  I sent out an email last month to the Tech Integrator and other STEM teachers at the high school looking for a possible high school volunteer for Code Club. When I didn’t hear anything, I sent some emails to my first Code Club parents.  Those students are now 9th graders, but I heard back that they are busy.  One younger brother (my 7th-grade helper I mentioned above) was willing to help out. Yay. He arrived (he is really tall now) and asked if it was the same format as when he was in Code Club.  Yep.  I haven’t changed much of the format.  He agreed that it worked as he enjoyed making his own project during the second half of the session.  A fifth-grader and Code Club member from last year also showed up to help.  Once I confirmed with one of his parents that he was allowed to stay, I had two helpers.

I usually start with a maze project or Chatbot.  I decided to start with a Chatbot.  I use Code Club world project directions and I like the first project to be an easy one so they can get used to the direction format. Whenever someone needed help, I’d make sure they had at least looked at the directions.

Other times when someone needed help, I’d have to encourage my helpers to jump in.  I think they had a good time and were helpful.  I heard them complain once about the coders not saving.  “You should save! Often.” I heard the 7th grader say.  I think the students were deleting the whole Sprite when they wanted to make a costume change rather than changing costumes from the costume tab.  I think I’m going to talk about the Sprites and their properties (and saving) next time.

I’m also going to introduce Space Junk as a learning project. It will meet their goals of learning to use arrow keys and the obstacle avoidance games. We are off to a good start.

A-mazing Fresh Start

For the first week of the 2nd session of Code Club, I asked that only the new members come so that we could go over the basics of Scratch. It would help to orient the new coders to Scratch if the “experts” weren’t there.  I planned on going over material the veteran coders had already learned, so they wouldn’t miss anything and the potential for them to distract the new Scratchers would be eliminated.

I thought I would start by teaching the new coders how to make a maze game on day one. It was one of the favorite types of games from the first session.  You learn the commands to control a Sprite using arrow keys and how to check if the Sprite is touching the walls.

Polar Adventure, a maze game, from Showcase #1

Perhaps it was a bit adventurous for the very first time, but with a smaller group I thought Alex, my high school volunteer, and I could handle it.

Dawn of the Day, maze-type game from Showcase #1

I also decided to create the instruction sheet myself.  Inspired by Code Club World project resources and Simon Haughton’s Scratch webpage, I customized my own version.

Maze Project #1 – Google Docs

I spent way too much time writing this up, but Alex was psyched just by the fact that I printed it in color.  Color copies are $$ but soooo helpful when learning Scratch because the code blocks are organized and grouped by color.

Alex also brought over a pair of college students, volunteers who are part of Coder Dojo, to help out. It was a spur of the moment sort of thing. I guess there was a code meeting at the high school with poor turn out so they had some extra time to come help us. The more help the merrier. In addition, a couple veteran students didn’t read the calendar carefully, especially the part about only new students the first meeting, and came to our meeting, so I assigned them to be one-on-one helpers. The helper to learner ratio was nearly even.  It was a nice start to the 2nd session and some great coding happened, like the example below.

Obstacle course by a new member with veteran support

 

Limits of Time and Space

Last week was the start of the new 10 week session of Code Club.  We have equal number of returning students and new students. I was seriously nervous about sign-up time. Last time I generated a waiting list by the third day.  This is the second and last session of Code Club for these 4th graders. As one student pointed out, there’s no point in a waiting list this time.

One week before the Showcase, I shared my concerns about the sign-up issue with my coders.  I was pretty sure that most of the students in the room would want to continue on, which a raised hand count confirmed, and I knew that a fair number of 4th graders were wanting to join in. The limits were 1) space – we have a set number of computers in the lab, and  2) time – my time, time until the end of the year, time until the weather is too nice to be inside sitting in front of a computer, their time until they aren’t 4th graders anymore.

I’m very proud to say that the students had some wonderful ideas to help solve our dilemma:  What if they could come back as helpers, not needing a computer themselves?  What if we had an advanced class at another time?  etc. They also let me know how generous they are – some expressed a willingness to give up their spot in Code Club to let someone else have a chance. So we decided that when the sign up flyers went out, everyone in the room who wanted to could sign up but that I would give preference to new students and fill the rest of the spots with returnees.  So that is what I did.

Hockey Game, made by a generous student willing to give up his spot in Code Club to a new student.

Four of the five students on the waiting list plus a half dozen new students signed up and that left a dozen spots for those veterans coders that just had to, would rather die than not, be in Code Club.  That makes for a nice mix of new and veteran Scratchers.