Day 1 Lesson Plan: Introducing Scratch

This lesson plan is for the first day of Creative Computer Exploration with Scratch.

Objectives

• The students will discover what Scratch can do

• The students will begin exploring how to use the application

• The students will manipulate Sprites and Blocks to form Scripts

• The students will start either a name project or another project with a distinct purpose and save it

Introducing Scratch

On the first day, the students will learn what Scratch can do, and how they can use the program. We will introduce Scratch as follows:

• Show the Scratch intro video ( YouTube Version)

• Demonstrate how to do basic things in Scratch:

• add sprites to the stage

• add blocks to scripts

• Show class one of the demo projects, preferably one you wrote yourself, and explain what is going on when it runs

• In Fall 2007, we used the Scary Halloween project

• In Winter 2008, we used the Dragon Swirl project

• Let class play with the demo for 5 minutes

Discussion

• Ask the class about what they would like to create on the computer

• Suggest that the students try to make their name into art, show a couple of the name projects briefly

• Let the class know that they will get a chance to work on their projects for this session and half of the next session,

• Inform the class that each student will get a chance to present their work during the next session.

Free Exploration / Name Project

• Assess how proficient each student is with computers, to see if anyone needs really basic help, such as pointing and clicking with the mouse.

• Observe the students exploring the Scratch program, and help students who get stuck

• Suggest strategies that students might use, like using existing letters, or painting things they might want but can't find in the sprite archive.

• Answer questions the students have about Scratch and what it can do

• 10 minutes before class breaks, help students save their work to a shared drive, make sure they label it with their name.