SCRATCH

Scratch is a great tool to create any kind of animated story, adding movement, sounds and a thousand effects.

We use it together with the Makey Makey controller so that our students can interact with their stories in a tactile or interactive way.

There is a version for younger students (5-7 years), or those who start coding with blocks called Scratch JR.

Storytelling with Scratch

This is a great way to start creating stories with our students, with the help of Scratch software

Here you can find some tutorial cards to use in the English class so that it will help our students creating stories in the EFL class.

Example of a story in Scratch:

Dues veritats i una mentida

This is an introduction activity where students choose two things about themselves that they want to share with their friends and one that is a lie, so that their classmates can find out things about themselves that they don't know.

This is a sample project.

"Two truths and a lie" is an activity that combines telling stories about yourself and programming. In this case, we will create a scenario with a character in one or different costumes to tell our story.

Recommended age: 8-12 years old.

Basic skills: C1, C3, C5, C6, C8, C9. C10

Description: This activity works on the use of language, content creation and block programming with Scratch.

Materials:

Tablet and/or computer

App Flipgrid

Creation:

Students individually create a new Scratch project. 

Each story will have three parts: Two statements that are true and one that is not true.

The activity consists of creating a project with our personal story and sharing it with the other classmates through the Flipgrid.

Implementation:

SESSION 1

Think of two things that are true and one lie and write them in the Scratch project. Add a character and change a costume for a photo of us. 

SESSION 2

We finish the programming with Scratch by adding sounds, phrases, more costumes so that they change depending on what we are saying, etc.

SESSION 3

We record our screen with the web version of Flipgrid or with the app if we have Scratch open there and add sound, if needed. The teacher shares the QR codes generated by the application so that we can see them in the class in augmented reality with a mobile device (tablet, usually) and find out what lie each of the classmates is telling us. 

Choose your own adventure

This is an adventure where students create parallel stories so that the reader can interact with the story and create their own one.

Here you can find a sample of the project

Choose your own adventure is an activity that combines educational robotics with the creation of stories and coding. In this case, we will create different scenarios that, combined, can give way to many different stories.

Age: 10-12 years old.

Key Competences: C1, C3, C5, C6, C8, C9, C10

Description: This activity will improve language competence of our students and will work their ability to create contents.

Materials:

How to do it:

Implementació:

Imagine a story and draw the storyboard on a dry erase whiteboard. If there is time, start creating the story using Scratch.

Search or create a backdrop, choose the characters and start with the first part of the story.

Continue with the two options for the Middle Part. We can use the same characters or hide them, we can also change or keep the backdrop.

To choose between the two options, we will use the blocks: "When this sprite clicked", and then we will start with the coding of the middle part (changing backdrops, actions, dialogues, etc.)

We will continue creating the alternative endings and we will try to make sure everything works correctly once we connect the Makey Makey.

When we finish, we will do an exhibition of stories where we can walk around the class and interact with the stories of our classmates.

Variation: