Wareham's CARE Summer Scratch Camp
Wareham's Scratch class debuted as part of the CARE (Community, Academic, Recreation and Enrichment) Summer Camp in 2012. The six week enrichment program is part of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) grants, which Wareham has received for the past decade.
The program targets students who struggle with the state's standardized testing. After participating in a four week online course, CARE teachers brought their newfound knowledge of Scratch to elementary students. Students entering grades 3-5 explored the capabilities of Scratch after venturing through the activities presented in the Draft Curriculum via laptops.
Working independently and with partners, students created an "All About Me" project, "Dance Party", and created projects involving the CARE Summer Camp's theme of Marine Life. Students have learned vital computer skills, problem solving skills and how to cooperate with others.
At the conclusion of the CARE Summer Camp, students' family and friends will be invited to explore the students' projects posted on the Scratch Gallery and will be introduced to the Scratch program as part of the CARE Fair.
The Scratch class will continue to be offered as part of the CARE after school program during the school year. Several students have tinkered with Scratch at home with their families thanks to the easy accessibility to the program. Wareham's CARE program is excited to encourage students' creativity and problem solving skills through the use of Scratch.
Dear Families,
Welcome to CARE Summer Camp's Scratch Class. My name is Mrs. Amanda Fitzgerald. I teach third grade at Minot Forest and have taught in the CARE program for the past 9 years. I will meet with your child's group on Mondays and Tuesdays or Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Scratch is a programming language created by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. Scratch makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music and art and share your creations on the web (if you give permission). Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. (Information taken from http://scratch.mit.edu.)
As we work on creating Scratch using laptops, students will be able to incorporate sounds and music into their projects. To help students focus on their projects and be able to hear what they are creating, I am asking that students bring in a set of headphones or ear buds to keep in school during the six weeks of CARE Camp. They will be kept in an individual zip lock bag with the child's name
The creativity does not have to end with CARE Summer Camp. You can download Scratch for free at home. Just visit http://scratch.mit.edu. (The program does not take up a lot of space - 120 megabytes.) Students can create at home and teach you! The Scratch website also allows students to post their projects in a gallery to be viewed by others and see over 2 million other projects from all around the world. If you give your child permission to have a Scratch account, he or she will need to provide a username, password, birth date, email, gender, and country. You could provide your own personal email if your child does not have one. Please check below if you give permission for your child to create a Scratch account. Please provide the information below so that I can assist your child in setting up an account, or you may opt to create the account at home with your child at http://scratch.mit.edu/signup
Thank you for encouraging your child to participate this summer! I'm very excited to begin this journey of creating using Scratch with the students. We will be inviting families to school to join us in creating projects and see students' projects towards the end of the summer. Stay tuned for details! Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns at AFitzgerald@wareham.k12.ma.us or phone at the Middle School 508-291-3550.
Thank you for your support
Sincerely,
Mrs. Amanda Fitzgerald
