After 4 months of doing a code club at my local primary school we’ve learned lots

Year 4’s we got 4 who are really into it and have come along massively

Scratch MIT is good

setup accounts (free) for all students eg we’ve used xyzcc (coding club) 1..

  • xyzcc1
  • xyzcc2

and the same password. The children remember their number and password, and can login from home.

Especially the tutorials

1. Getting Started

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Getting Started tutorial - notice the video in the window. Press the white/green arrow which shows you slides of what to do.

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Blocks used on a Sprite. Right click to add a Comment where I’ve labelled which the type of the block ie where to find it in the menu. The colours should help too.

2. Animate a Name

tutorial

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You can print stuff off (which I’m sure is very helpful). We just let the children do the tutorials with the video or slides

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When a sprite is clicked, play a sound

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When sprit is clicked, change colour (the A)

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Turning a sprite (the V)

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Making sprite bigger and smaller when clicked

A. Summary - Cat on Boardwalk

  • when green flag clicked (ie program start)
  • move a sprite

  • make it say a message

  • when a sprite is clicked
  • play a sound
  • change colour
  • turn the sprite
  • change sprite size (ie bigger and smaller)

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Own demo of first things learned including figuring out how to reset the sprite direction of program restart.

3. Imagine a World

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New things learned here:

  • switch backdrop
  • go to x y coords (on green flag ie reset)

  • glide to position

  • switch costume
  • set size to 125% (rather than making size bigger by 10 on repeat)

  • arrow keys move sprite

  • glide to random position

B. Dog on Moon

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testing out everything learned so far

4. Make Music

Interesting as can make chords

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  • operator - pick random 1 to 10!
  • next costume to give note graphic from sax

5. Story

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  • witchhouse background
  • wizard sprite
  • elf sprite
  • flip costume (so characters face each other)
  • switch backdrop to
  • when backdrop switches to.. hide wizard
  • when green flag clicked… show wizard

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D16hTnDGweo griff patch. platformer.. looks great. There is a project to remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N033rFSELE space invaders - looks good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqsNb0s7Oq4 asteroids… lemons.. looks super good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x14G4DCk4nY flappy chicken… scroller, gravity, collision

Extensions

  • Text to speech
  • Music

TODO

Make classic games in scratch

  • pong
  • frogger
  • dinosaur game
  • space invaders
  • 1942
  • pac man

Windows skill

  • all can open laptop and login (they know which class)
  • can open Chrome
  • Google search for: scratch mit (teaching alt d trick so don’t have to use keyboard)
  • login with xyzcc1 and password
  • do a tutorial

Games for younger kids

who want to come along and watch

https://dinosaur-game.io/ dino game, geometry dash

https://www.lessmilk.com/almost-pong/