January 2013 Meetup Discussion Notes: Ideas for Stepping into Scratch with Students

At the January 2013 Scratch educator meetup, participants shared ideas for how to facilitate an introductory Scratch session with students.

Ideas for Stepping into Scratch with Students

• Do the About Me project (session #2 in the Scratch curriculum guide)
• Start by showing awesome examples; then set a manageable project. Success on step one!
• Goal-directed simple project with many possible solutions
• Show and use ease of using graphics and sound together.
• Use the Scratch Cards as a resource.
• Create a program to tell a knock-knock joke.
• A quick, one-off session to show cool Scratch projects and teach the super basics can serve as a "teaser" to get kids to sign-up for more longterm Scratch commitments.
• You have to have a hook - show them all the cool things you can create and do using Scratch.
• Using some of the first activities in the Scratch curriculum guide can be a good way to introduce kids to the basics of Scratch!

What ideas do you have? Please share them below.