3rd Grade Computers Week 2

Hello again Greenwood folks! I hope the first week was a fairly smooth transition to online education and I also hope everyone is healthy and happy. I will be making a website for the Technology classes this upcoming week so that elementary teachers can simply link to it from their class page and we can avoid flooding you all with multiple emails.

This week’s lesson is a continuation of Scratch. I’ve received several email telling me that my students have really enjoyed the previous lesson and have even jumped ahead to other Scratch activities. That’s fantastic news! If your student is enjoying the lesson (or if they are having trouble) please let me know. Feedback is necessary to make sure we iron out the pros and cons of this new way of teaching and learning! And off we go…

1. Parents and care providers; as I’ve said before, it’s a good idea to make a Scratch account for your student. It’s not necessary but it’s free and will keep their work saved for future reference.

2. Our first lesson of the week is choosing a backdrop. Let’s open up a simple Scratch lesson that shows how to change the background of our scene. Please let your student check the different options at their disposal.

- Follow the link https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tutorial=all

- At the top of the screen click on the button that says “Art”

- Click on the picture that says “Add a Backdrop”

- The tutorial should load. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a pretty easy lesson that just demonstrates how to choose from multiple backgrounds for later projects.

The next lesson in Scratch is called “Animate a Name”. It’s a fun little exercise where students can make the letters in their name do several different entertaining things!

1. Again, click on https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tutorial=all

2. Click on the button that says “Art” at the top of the screen.

3. Click on the picture that says “Animate a Name”.

4. The tutorial should load. Keep in mind that all of the action buttons are color coded. Of all of the blocks that we put together, the first one should be an ‘EVENT’ block such as “When Clicked” or “When space key is pressed”. This lets the program know when to start the chain of events.

Students are not limited to simply what is in the tutorial! Let them experiment with all of the settings that they feel like trying out!

I hope this lesson is enjoyed by your student! It’s a great introduction to the world of coding that we will continue to explore in the upcoming years.

Cheers!

- Jason Barlowe

Greenwood Technology Educator

Greenwood Technology Support