Scratch Computer Programming: Lesson 2

This week in Scratch, we progressed to creating our first program or 'story'. In order to do this, my class learned how to add a new character, a new background, make their character say something and how to change its colour.

This week's lesson format was a little different than last week's:

1. We began with a quick pair discussion based on what they had learned last week. We then discussed these things as a class.

2. I explained what they were going to learn in the lesson and that they would have to complete a challenge using these skills at the end of the lesson. I told them that I would explain each skill briefly, give them some time to try it out themselves and when I called out 'Heads!' they would have to stop what they were doing and put both their hands on their heads (otherwise I would have definitely struggled for attention!).

3. They opened Scratch and we went through the skills included on the PowerPoint below:

Computer Coding with Scratch: Lesson 2_primaryschoollessons from SeniorInfants

Note: You can download this PowerPoint by following the link and logging into SlideShare as a member. Membership and downloads from this website are free.

4. Once we reached the challenge section of the PowerPoint, I told the children that when they had completed the challenge and saved their story to their USB keys, they could create a new project and continue to explore the program with their partner. This worked well as some children finished very quickly, while others took almost 20 minutes to complete the challenge. The whole lesson lasted 40 minutes in total: 15-20 minutes on the PowerPoint and 20 minutes spent working on the challenge and on free-play.

Don't forget to leave a comment if you have any questions about this lesson!

If you missed lesson 1 of my Computer Programming Series, you can find it here.