Scratch Video

Beginner

40 mins

Teacher led

What you need:
Chromebook/Laptop/PC or iPad/Tablet

Scratch Tutorial

This lesson guides teachers through introducing their students to Scratch, a coding platform. Teachers will explain what coding is, show a Scratch tutorial video, and guide students through creating their first project. This includes making a sprite move, adding a loop, changing the numbers, and adding a backdrop.

Learning Goals Learning Outcomes Teacher Notes

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1 Introduction
2 Introducing Scratch
3 Open the Scratch website
4 Make the cat move
5 Turn the Cat
6 Add a loop
7 Change the numbers
8 Add a backdrop
9 Explore Scratch
10 Conclusion
Quiz

1 - Introduction

Welcome your students to the exciting world of coding! Explain to them that they will be using a platform called Scratch, where they can create their own games, animations, and interactive stories. Encourage them to imagine bringing their own characters to life, making them move, dance, jump, and more. Also, let them know that they will learn how to add beautiful scenes or backdrops to their projects. Make sure to create an atmosphere of fun and excitement for this coding adventure.

Here are some prompts to help you introduce the lesson:

What do you think coding is?
Have you ever wanted to create your own game or animation?
What kind of character would you like to bring to life?
Can you imagine making your character move, dance, or jump with your own code?

Remember, the goal is to spark their curiosity and get them excited about learning Scratch.

Teacher Notes

To save work in Scratch, students need accounts, which require creating usernames and passwords (along with parent email addresses). While this is possible, it's generally not recommended for classroom settings with students under 10 years old. The account login process can be time-consuming and may lead to frustration for both students and teachers, potentially interfering with the learning experience.

For students who show particular interest in continuing with Scratch, you may suggest they create an account at home with parental supervision, allowing them to save and share their projects outside of class time.

Scratch does offers Teacher accounts, which allow educators to manage student accounts. However, we've found these to be of limited utility and potentially unmanageable across different years and classes, as they restrict account management to a single teacher and don't allow for transfer between educators.

2 - Introducing Scratch

Welcome to the exciting world of Scratch!

Next we're going to watch a short video that will introduce us to Scratch. As we watch, pay close attention to how the characters, or 'sprites', move around and interact. Think about how you might like to make your own sprite move. Maybe it could dance, jump, or even fly! After we've watched the video, we'll start exploring Scratch ourselves. So, let's get ready to dive into this fun coding adventure!

3 - Open the Scratch website

Now the students are ready to try our scratch themselves. Get the students ready with their devices and go to the Scratch website:

scratch.mit.edu

Students (with your help) need to:

Turn on their device
Open a web browser
Go to the Scratch website:
1. Go to the URL scratch.mit.edu
2. or search for 'scratch' in a search engine and open the website that way

Once all the students are on the Scratch website, get them to click on the 'Create' link at the top of the page. This will open up the project editor.

Sometimes a small tutorial box will open. Just get the students to close this by clicking on the X at the top right of the tutorials box.

4 - Make the cat move

Now let's add our first piece of code. We are going to add some code to give the cat sprite some instructions to move.

Get the students to open the Controls toolbox (orange circle) and drag the

when green flag clicked

block into the code area. Next get them to open the Motion toolbox (blue circle) and then attach the

move (10) steps

block to the when green flag clicked block.

Once they have added those two code blocks, get them to click on the Green flag to run their code. Each time they click the green flag, their code will run and the cat should move a little to the right.

5 - Turn the Cat

Now, let's make our cat sprite turn a little. We will add a new block to our existing code.

First, open the Motion toolbox (blue circle) and find the

turn cw (15) degrees

block. Drag this block and attach it under the

move (10) steps

block in your code area. Your code should now look like this:

when green flag clicked
move (10) steps
turn cw (15) degrees

Once you have added this block, click on the Green flag to run your code. Watch how the cat moves and turns a little each time you click the green flag. This is because we have instructed it to move 10 steps AND turn 15 degrees clockwise every time the green flag is clicked.

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Copyright Notice
This lesson is copyright of Coding Ireland. Unauthorised use, copying or distribution is not allowed.

Scratch is developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is available for free at https://scratch.mit.edu