Tag: scratch

5th Grade Variables with Scratch

Fifth graders at Laburnum Elementary have been learning about variables in Math (SOL5.19). Today, students in Ms. Hall’s class used variables and code to create mini math games using Scratch. I started out explaining the idea behind the math game: a character would ask for the players’ name, it would calculate the number of letters in the name, then create a multiplication problem with that number and a random number between 1 and 12. The player would try to solve the problem, and the character would let them know if they were right or wrong. Students could use their own creativity to modify the game however they wished. First, we selected a background and a character (called a sprite) in Scratch. Then, we went into the sprite’s costumes and used the paint tools to make a happy costume for the correct answer and a sad costume for the wrong answer. Now it was time to build the code with variables. I pointed out that a variable is just something that can change. So the player’s name is a variable, the number of letters in the name is a variable, the random number is a variable, and the player’s answer to the multiplication problem is a variable. In Scratch, you define variables using a piece of code that basically says, “Set (variable) to (whatever you define it as).” The variables are displayed in the top corner of the game to keep track of them, but you can delete those if you want. After defining the variables, the students added some “if-then-else” code so that if the answer is correct it would display the happy costume, otherwise it would display the sad costume. The character could also make a statement, if they wished. Finally, we shared our links on Schoology and tested each others’ games. You can see all their Scratch creations here (just click on their names under each picture). Be sure to click the “See Inside” button to view their code.




5th Grade Coding with Scratch

scratchComputer Science Education week is coming up (Dec 9-15) and the goal is to give students the opportunity to practice coding and computer programming in a fun, simple way. The motive behind it is that computer programming jobs continue to be in high demand, but few students are exposed to writing code in school. So the Computer Science Education Week website has a cool video of famous people talking about the importance of learning code and they give ideas for teaching an Hour of Code in school. The teachers at Davis Elementary want to participate in the Hour of Code, so I’ve been introducing them to a kid-friendly program developed by MIT called Scratch. It’s already installed on the student computers. Today I was showing the fifth graders in Ms. Elsea’s class how to use it. First I showed them a sample I created here. It’s not super exciting, but it shows how Scratch can not only animate, but it can take user inputs and do calculations. I gave the students about 5 minutes to just explore the program and they caught on very quickly. Next I gave them a task to program the cat to make a square. I told them to be as succinct and efficient with their code as possible. Maggie’s code won because she figured out how to make a square in just 7 lines of code. On the link you can click the “See inside” button to see the code she used. Some of the students went on and made their cats speak, sing, or even change colors. Take a look at Bowen’s code to see what I’m talking about. If students can do that in just one hour, imagine what they can do with more practice. I heard a couple of students say they were going to download Scratch at home, so I look forward to seeing what they create!


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5th Grade Protractor Project

protractorFifth graders at Chamberlayne Elementary have been learning about angles and how to measure them with a protractor. They also have to know how to use a virtual protractor for their online SOL tests. So the teachers wanted me to practice these skills with their students. I thought what better way than to have the students create their own virtual protractors. So we used Keynote and I showed them how to create a protractor shape using the Vector Shape Tool. Next we added the labels and I explained how holding down Shift when drawing lines will snap the lines to 0º, 45º, and 90º. We discussed how a protractor has two labels for each angle since they could be obtuse or acute. So we labeled the parts of our protractors: 0º, 45º/135º, 90º, and 135º/45º. We also made our protractor transparent by changing the opacity. Next we created some angles with the Arrow Tool. I showed them how to use the Option + Drag trick to make a copy of the rays so that they didn’t have to recreate them each time. Finally we used the Group and Front buttons to group all the parts of our protractor together and bring it on top of all the angles. Then students practiced using each others’ protractors to measure the angles. I had a few minutes at the end of the lesson, so I showed the students a new program we have called Scratch. It allows students to create simple programs with an elementary coding language. We wrote a sample program that makes Scratch the Cat draw angles. You can see it by clicking here.