Tutorial for students in grades 6-8
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George Ellis Jr.
Member
November 22, 2010
I plan to introduce Scratch programming software to students in grades 6-8 by February of 2011. None of these students have been formally introduced to programming. I saw Scratch in action at a MICCA conference in April of 2010 and was impressed. I believe students will learn some valuable programming concepts by using Scratch. Since I am not a programmer, I will need an easy-to-use Scratch tutorial to familiarize myself with Scratch before introducing the program to students. Can anyone recommend an easy-to-use Scratch tutorial with learning activities appropriate for middle school students? Once I'm comfortable enough with the program, I plan to have students use Scratch to develop curriculum based projects.
From
GE
I agree with MIke about Pong - it covers a lot of skills and concepts and getting a working game is a satisfying result.
With our year 5/6 group we guided step by step through this activity in about 15-20 mins max, then in the remaining workshop time invited modifications and improvements, which were plentiful.
The example projects <FILE/OPEN/EXAMPLES> also provide a range of potential project starting points.
Hi George,
I also recommend the support page on the Scratch website. There are also resources and tutorial pages.
As for student activities, my favorite is the exquisite corpse activity. There is a worksheet and teacher's reflection. I'd also recommend looking at the Scratch Cards.
There is a discussion about this here which might give you some more ideas about introducing Scratch to beginners. I would also check through the resources in the 13-15 age range.
I'd be interested to hear about you and your students' progress. Keep us updated!
I would start at the official Scratch website (scratch.mit.edu). They have some great introductory material. Beyond that, I always find starting with a simple project is useful because you come out with a product while learning some fundamentals. Making a simple "Pong" game was a good place to start for me and I found this site:
http://www.smsn.vic.edu.au/ictguy/wp-content/podcasts/scratch_pong_640.mp4
Learnscratch.org is also a great resource!
Hope that helps.
Happy Scratching!
Mike