SCRATCH

Christmas and New Year's break did not go exactly as planned.  The way the holidays fell this year made the break feel like there were few non-holiday/weekend days to make appointments and get work done around the house.  My husband and I reconnected with some friends and our families over break as well.  Unfortunately we received heart breaking news on New Year's Day.  We were asked to come and say good bye to a very close friend that had recently suffered some complications from his cancer.  On January 6th he passed away quietly while surrounded by friends and family.  This has been a very difficult time for Eric and I.  We were delayed in our return to school and are just now readjusting to our school routine.

Now that I am starting to settle back into my school routine, I felt I needed to blog about my latest STEM project - SCRATCH!  My students have spent the last five days participating in mini-lessons that exposed them to how the different Scratch blocks work together to control a sprite.  I used many of the lessons and instructional videos found on Redware's Scratch website.  (There was one video missing and it was the video on importing sounds and graphics, but I found it on YouTube!)  We started with a brief vocabulary activity and then the video on creating sprites.  I gave the students five points for each day they completed the daily goal.  (Basically recreating the code from the instructional video.)  On the second day the students watched the video on turtle graphics and programmed their sprite to draw a shape or design.  Following turtle graphics the students completed importing sounds and graphics one day, sensing another, and then broadcasting last.  When I asked the students how helpful the mini-lessons were they told me very because it showed them what some of the blocks meant.  Most of my students met their goal just minutes after I told them to begin and then would spend the rest of the class period experimenting with the other blocks of code.  The kids are REALLY enjoying all of the freedom with this unit.

If you haven't checked Scratch out yet, you HAVE to download this free program developed by MIT to play with.  It would make a FANTASTIC middle school club.  More on Scratch to come!