Scratch at Drinagh N.S.

Scratch programming allows children to bring their creations to life through animation. Creating is a huge part of future-focused education. Scratch programming gives children the opportunity to become digital creators.

Scratch – coding a Pac-Man

The children had to create a Pac-Man type character as part of a Fís Film we were making. This was a perfect opportunity to use Scratch Coding.

In the first scene the Pac-Man appears on the classroom whiteboard and moves across the screen. The children drew a new sprite Pac-Man 1 using Scratch.

They then created a second costume for this sprite.

It was now time for a bit of scratch coding to create the animation.

 

The Pac-Man eats a decimal point while the “teacher” is explaining decimals. The children drew a new sprite – A decimal number.

They then created a second costume with the decimal point gone.

There were a couple of ways the children could code this part. One way was to use a wait block

Now we just had to play the programme on classroom whiteboard while the children acted out their parts. Lets have a look at the finished scene.

Scratch is free to download. The Scratch Offline Editor can be downloaded here.

https://uploads.scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download/

 

Scratch Coding – a simple start

This simple script involves an animated Smiley Face that blinks and then smiles. Have a quick look at the finished animation before we share the Scratch block programming.

This animation involves just four pictures.

To create this animation the children first had to create the Smiley Face character or “sprite”. Scratch has a Draw Sprite option which is very user friendly and is quite similiar to MS Paint.

The children next duplicated the Smiley Face sprite and then edited the eyes to create the blink costume.

 

Another duplication of the Smiley Face was edited to create the start of a smile costume.

Another duplication of the Smiley Face was edited to create a full smile costume.

Next the children used Scratch blocks to create the code. Blocks are puzzle-piece shapes that connect to each other vertically like a jigsaw puzzle.

The Green Flag block starts the script.

The switch costume block is used to change the appearance of the sprite.

The wait block controls the length of time that each costume appears.

The finished script for our short animation.

Scratch is free to download. The Scratch Offline Editor can be downloaded here.

https://uploads.scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download/

 

 

 

 

Coding with Scratch

Scratch helps the children develop many numeracy skills in an exciting and enjoyable way.  One of the main features of Scratch is the collaboration between the children – The children love to look at and learn from each others coding and advise is sought and offered actively.