SCRATCH V - Design a toy

Click here for a full listing of all my Scratch Projects

In this project, students create a toy bear, using sprites to simulate “touch pads” -making the bear smile, blink, change colour, etc. Enhancements include using the keyboard instead of sprites, and adding sound.

There are many sites offering Scratch Projects. However, many tend to be like recipes - students almost mechanically enter code and create “delicious cakes”, without learning a lot about Scratch.

My goal is to get students to create a fun project, and at the same time learn how the instructions work and fit together. I use the following approach:
- break the project into manageable chunks
- present “pseudo-code” for each chunk
- provide the Scratch commands to implement the pseudo-code, but jumbled up
In this way, students learn about pseudo-code (an important part of coding), and have to understand the Scratch instructions in order to sequence them correctly to match the pseudo-code.

The lessons comprise:
1. a PowerPoint with instructions
2. a Word document with the instruction slides printed 2 to a page as a handout
3. accompanying Scratch files for teachers that match each stage of the project

ALL my postings are FULLY “classroom-tested”, and continually updated. But there is always the possibility of error and room for improvement, so please provide constructive feedback.