We have had a lot of fun this year learning to code with the Scratch Jr. app. This app uses a coding language called Blockly. The children can create a series of commands by manipulating the blockly codes to move the characters they have chosen to complete a variety of activites.
The children experimented with the variety of coding commands. First they choose their characters and backgrounds and then choose how to move their characters within the space. They could create more than one page and then link each page together. Whenever they figured out a really cool action or how to use a command we shared their ideas on our lovely Promethean Board. We are very lucky in our classroom because we can take the individual iPads and plug them into the board and let the children demonstrate whichever strategy they have learned for their classmates. The children were super excited to share their ideas.
The yellow blocks show the starting spot. One of the ways you can trigger the code is by touching the character on the screen. You can add speech and create a dialogue for your character. The blue blocks direct the motion. The final red blocks are the end point and can direct the action to another page if coded to do so.
The children have had a lot of fun exploring this app and learning how to code using the Blockly blocks.
Can you figure out what the Cat will do by looking at the code? You can see that this is the second page of the coding project.
It has been awesome to see the children figuring out how to manipulate the code and sharing their new expertise with their classmates! Really fun to watch!
Can you read the code to figure out what this cat will do?
We took screen shots of the code the children created to send home via SeeSaw as this is the only way we can share the projects at this time. SeeSaw is a digital portfolio app that allows us to share our projects with our families. We love it because the students can easily share their work with their families all by themselves!
It is way more fun to see the characters actually do the actions the children have programmed them to do! The children love to share their work with their classmates.
I really love this app as it gets the children thinking about what they want their characters to do and how to achieve that action! Everyone gets to create their own actions and everyone’s work is unique! Love to see all the collaboration between the students! Way too much fun!
Mrs. Anton's Class! 