Scratch 2.0 (beta) was recently put online for people to use - http://beta.scratch.mit.edu/
I've just spent the morning making up lots of resources to help children code a variety of games using it - I hope they're useful!
Download Scratch Programming Lesson 1 (Etch-a-Sketch)
Download Scratch Programming Lesson 2 (Car Racing Game)
Download Scratch Programming Lesson 3 (Pong)
Now that the children are more familiar with the different command blocks available in Scratch, for the third activity I like to teach them how to program a slightly different game - a Pong-style game in which they have to use a paddle/bat to keep a ball bouncing around the screen for as long as possible without touching the floor.
Like last time, I once again began by giving them a quick demonstration of what moving sprites (objects) needed creating and how the background needed designing:
After this, I just then let them work independently at copying my sheet of commands which they all managed to do really well. They basically instruct the paddle to move left/right in response to changes in the mouse's X position and the ball to bounce around the screen edges until it touches a line near the bottom.
During the game creation process, I regularly asked the children questions to encourage them to test executing their program so that they clearly understood the purpose of each command and to ensure that it functioned as expected. I also prompted them to add a variable which counted the ‘hits’ and displayed it as a score and another variable which showed the ball’s speed, which increases during the game. To further challenge the more confident children, I asked them to further improve their games by doing things like changing the background picture or re-sizing their paddle (I disuaded them from changing the ball as the game works best with a perfectly shaped circle.)
The children seemed to work much more confidently this week programming their games and their ability to combine various command blocks together successfully in Scratch had really improved. They loved playing each other's games (see here on my school's website) and finding out who could achieve the top score - a few even sneakily tweaked their code so that their score increased by 5 (not 1) when the ball hit the paddle!
This lesson is proof that: programming can be fun, game development can be interesting and that primary school children are sometimes more capable than you'd think! (I regularly see high schools doing much, much more basic Scratch stuff with Year 8s...)
The second Scratch lesson that I like to teach involves programming a car to move around an on-screen race track in response to presses on the arrow keys on the keyboard.
This builds nicely on the Etch-a-Sketch game since it basically just replaces the triangle sprite with a car and the white background with one of a race track.
From my experience of asking children to create this game, I've found that it takes about an hour and a half so can either be done over two sessions or a slightly longer single session.
The first part of creating the game involves painting the race track and car. This process does need demonstrating to the children but I've found that doing it at quite a fast pace and providing them with a set of printed instructions enables them to complete it fairly quickly so that they don't waste precious game-playing time at the end:
It's essential that they follow these instructions to the letter - mistakes made now will mean their game won't work properly later on.
Following this, they can then begin programming their game on their own. I provided them with a set of commands which they seemed to work fairly well to copy into Scratch, with a few reminders from me to encourage them to frequently test to check that they worked expected and if not, to make any required modifications ('debug' it). The principles behind this code are quite straightforward – the car gets placed at the start of the track when the green flag is pressed and can then be moved around when different arrow keys are pressed on the keyboard.
To teach them how to use conditional statements, I also included some ‘IF’ statements for them to put in to enhance their game-playing experience – notably to move the car back to the start IF it touches the grass (and goes off the road) and to say a short ‘well done’ message IF it touches the finish line (and complete the race track). For the geeks out there, running several stacks of commands at the same time like this in the game is an example of parallel execution, although I didn’t feel the need to actually teach this term. To challenge the more confident children, I also tried to get them to add a timer to their game which would time each race and display it when the finished line is reached.
Notice how I have used the comment tool to explain the function of each set of commands and how it might need modifying.
The children are always really impressed with the games that they manage to create and really do appreciate how simple the programming ideas behind them can be.
You can view some of the games the children created this year on my school's website here - http://parkfield.typepad.com/parkfield/2012/06/year-5-racing-car-games.html.
I did squash it into one slightly longer ICT lesson but perhaps spreading it out next year would allow some extra things to be added to them:
There's been much talk in the media recently about the need and value in teaching computer programming in primary schools - see this article from the BBC News website and this article from the BBC Newsround website, for instance. A few years ago I blogged my lessons about how to program Scratch games but felt that they needed revisiting since I've tweaked and improved them since then.
To begin, it's worthwhile just highlighting the progression that the pupils have in programming at my school so that you can see where teaching Scratch programming during Year 5 fits in. In summary:
Scratch can be downloaded for free by clicking here. I introduce it to the children by comparing it to building models out of LEGO bricks (since you have to join different command blocks together to create a complete program/model) and as being a more advanced version of a Logo programming language (since it allows you to control the movement of an on-screen picture but creates more complex and interesting results).
Now unfortunately if you just open the application up, by default it gives you a cat to move around – to make the progression from MSW Logo easier though, I instead always open up a project file (as Scratch calls them) where I’ve replaced this cat character (or ‘sprite’) with a more familiar and less distracting triangle.
I also ensure that I highlight a few fundamental features of the software too because it is a very new piece of software to them, notably:
(Download new game.sb template project.)
To begin, I keep things simple and limit the children to just using the ‘Motion’ and ‘Pen’ command groups. I demonstrate how each command block can be dragged across into the middle ‘Scripts Area’ and then double-clicked on to be run. I also show them how to snap blocks of commands together so that they will execute in sequence when double-clicked. To practice these skills, I provide the children with a series of command sets to copy that teach them how to draw simple patterns and regular polygon shapes (squares, pentagons etc.) using the ‘Pen down’, ‘Move x steps’ and ‘Turn left/right x degrees’ commands. Two useful tips I also teach them here are how they can use the ‘clear’ and ‘point in direction’ blocks to re-set the main screen (stage area) and how to drag commands back over to the left to delete them – helpful for correcting mistakes when a sequence of commands doesn’t work as expected (this is called ‘debugging’).
Using this instruction sheet works extremely well I find since children think it's very similar to following the building guide they get with LEGO model sets but with the added bonus of having some annotations on by me explaining the function of each command/how a command can be edited to change what it does. (See this article that explain how to write them.) The children can follow it step-by-step independently and they enjoy learning the functions of the new commands as they come across them. The fact that the command blocks are colour-coded depending on which set they are in helps even more (e.g. motion blocks are blue, pen blocks are a murky green colour etc.)
After a while and when they seem to be getting confident at using the Scratch interface, I then let them have a go at programming their own Etch-a-Sketch-style game. This is a relatively straigtforward program to make since the main element of control is just making the triangle sprite move in different directions around the stage area depending on which arrow key on the keyboard has been pressed.
I encourage the more confident children to try adding extra sets of commands once finished to make the pen to change to different colours and/or thicknesses depending on which number/letter key has been pressed on the keyboard.
This lesson works really well and I'm sure your children would enjoy doing it. I find that they not only love playing and drawing with their finished Etch-a-Sketch games, but they also really seem to like learning how interesting and (perhaps more importantly) how accessible to them computer game programming actually is.
As a post script, here is a copy of a skills checklist that I have recently created that shows progression in computer programming. The ideas behind it being that the learning intention stays consistent across the school but the complexity level of the criteria for success increases as ICT capability improves.
Here's some instructions I've made explaining how children can create a simple 'Angry Birds' style game using Scratch.
This is a lesson that I’d trialled out with older children in my ICT club first with great success so felt that it would work well when taught to a whole class.
The idea was to show Year 5 children how to program their own ‘Pong’-style computer game in Scratch, building on their earlier work in the sfotware. I began by talking them through the plan/do/review cycle that ICT tasks follow, noting how for this task the ‘plan’ would be the initial game concept/challenge, the ‘do’ would be the programming and the ‘review’ would be the testing/modifying of the game.
A few days ago I treated myself to a Lego WeDo construction set. I had been debating for a few months whether to buy it, but when I discovered that it could integrate with Scratch I felt that the decision was a bit of no-brainer so I went ahead and put in an order.
The box contains a variety of Lego pieces together with a: motor, distance sensor and tilt sensor which can all be connected to a computer via USB to be controlled. You can purchase some special software made by Lego to program your control systems, however I found that this wasn't really necessary since the familiar Scratch software lets you carry out pretty much the same tasks and also has the bonus of being free.
This helpful guide I downloaded describes what extra Scratch functionality is provided when the Lego WeDo controller is plugged in to your computer:
To say that I found it easy to control the motor using Scratch would be an understatement - all I had to do was double-click on a 'motor on' command block to get it moving and then double-click on a 'motor off' block to stop it again. The distance and tilt sensors were just as straightforward, with me getting Scratch to display their values on-screen using the 'Say' command block as I either moved the tilt sensor around or moved a pencil back and forth in front of the distance sensor to check that they were working.
The fun really started however when I began to incorporate them into some actual Lego models - not least due to the fact I had no instructions to follow since these are only supplied if you buy the Lego software and not when you just buy the bricks! My building skills didn't seem to mind the challenge of copying from some photographs I found on Flickr though, and I happily spent a good couple of hours building two models and creating two simple programs to control them using Scratch:
A Pair of Spinning Birds
A Hungry Alligator
As you can see, the results of my efforts were pretty good and I could definitely see the curriculum potential here since they required me to use loops and conditional (IF) statements to program an actuator (the motor) to work. I'm sure that children would love to learn how to complete their own similar projects themselves (presuming that they already had a little prior experience using Scratch) and would certainly find the task a lot more intuitive and exciting than other 'control' projects I've read about/delivered. I would highly recommend getting the set and would love to hear about anyone else's experiences of using it in the classroom.
Following on from our earlier discussions about the history of computer games and our explorations of the Scratch software last week to create a simple Etch-a-Sketch game, this week it was time for Year 5 to develop their understanding of programming concepts by learning how to use a new selection of command blocks. To do this, I decided to teach them how to create a simple racing car game in the software and without any shadow of a doubt I can honestly say that they all absolutely loved it – it was one of those lessons which both the children and I didn’t want to end!
This lesson took exactly an hour and by the end of it all the children were impressed with what they had achieved. If we would have had longer I perhaps would have given them some time to go back and improve the appearance of their race track backgrounds (e.g. adding details like trees and spectators) or to possibly add some sound effects, however I do think that what they managed in the end was pretty good. Yet again, I’ve been given more evidence to prove that primary school children can be taught programming and absolutely thrive at the opportunity to learn how to produce their own games, including the challenges involved in debugging their projects.
Following our work about the history of controlling computer games last week, this time it was time to teach Year 5 how to program their own using Scratch.
Since this software is free to download (available here), it also meant that the children could install it and use it at home if they wished. If you’ve never seen it before, it’s basically a more advanced version of MSW LOGO which lets you create much more complex and interesting programs – and this is how I introduce it to the children. Now unfortunately if you just open the application up, by default it gives you a cat to move around – to make the progression from piece of software to another easier however, I instead always get them to open up a project file (as Scratch calls them) where I’ve replaced this cat character (or ‘sprite’) with a more familiar and less distracting triangle.
Download New Game Template Project
To begin, I keep things simple and limit the children to just using the ‘Motion’ and ‘Pen’ command groups. I demonstrate how each command block can be dragged across into the middle ‘Scripts Area’ and then double-clicked on to be run. I also show them how to snap blocks of commands together so that they will execute in sequence when double-clicked. Good activities here to practice these skills are to challenge the children to draw regular polygon shapes – so drawing shapes like equilateral triangles, squares and pentagons using the ‘Pen down’, ‘Move x steps’ and ‘Turn left/right x degrees’ commands. Two useful tips I also teach them here are how they can use the ‘clear’ and ‘point in direction’ blocks to re-set the main screen (stage area) and how to drag commands back over to the left to delete them – helpful for correcting mistakes when a sequence of commands doesn’t work as expected (this is called ‘debugging’).
After this short introduction, I then let them have a go at programming their own Etch-a-Sketch game. This is a relatively easy program to make since the main element of control is just making the triangle sprite move in different directions around the stage are depending on which arrow key on the keyboard has been pressed. Rather than doing this as a step-by-step tutorial, I provide them with a copy of the final program and just ask them to copy it – similar to the instruction sets you get when building Lego models. All the children always find this straightforward to do since the command blocks are colour-coded depending on which set they are (e.g. motion blocks are blue, pen blocks are a murky green colour etc.) Following a little tip by @twowhizzy, I also include little annotations within this to prompt them to think about what the purpose of each command is.
I encourage the more confident children to try adding extra sets of commands once finished to make the pen to change to different colours and/or thicknesses depending on which number/letter key has been pressed on the keyboard.
This a lesson which I’ve been refining/improving for the last 3 years but I now finally think that it works brilliantly. The children not only loved playing and drawing with their finished etch-a-sketch games, but they also really seemed to like learning how interesting and (perhaps more importantly) how accessible to them programming actually is.
The history of computer games is something I’ve wanted to teach for a few months now (after first being inspired by @xannov) and so was pleased when I came up with this lesson idea of how it could be used as an introduction to a unit of work with Year 5 on making games using Scratch.
To begin, we recapped together on the differences between computer simulations and games – a concept they had previously been taught back in Year 3:
This then led nicely into a discussion about their current knowledge of how computer games have developed in the past few decades. I stimulated this by asking them questions like: What is the earliest computer game/simulation you can remember playing? What was the challenge in it? What did you use to interact with it/control the on-screen character/vehicle? Can you name any computer games/simulations from before you were born?
We then looked at this website that I wrote over half-term to research about how the input devices used for controlling games consoles have developed to allow players to interact with games much more easily and intuitively over time. To show this, I included information about five different consoles and popular games played on them which clearly show the improvements – Home Pong, Pac-Man, SNES, Nintendo 64 and the Wii.
Next, I asked them to create a short timeline in 2Connect to show these developments in computer game control, detailing the changes from two button controllers and joysticks to gamepads and eventually wireless motion sensors. This worked well as children were already familiar with the program and the more confident ones even had the chance to add pictures and to change the box/arrow colours to help illustrate their work and make it look attractive.
To end the lesson, I asked the children to review what they had learnt by considering how they perceived developments in control technology had affected the gaming industry – with many highlighting how they have made the games more exciting and realistic to play.
In the past, I’ve always struggled to find an interesting lesson to use at the start of this unit of work (I find writing flowcharts for traffic lights boring), so I felt pleased today that I had succeeded in delivering a lesson which was not only motivating and appealing to the children, but which also managed to teach them some valuable knowledge about the history of one particular real-life use of control technology – to play computer games.
I’m now looking forward to teaching the children how to create their own keyboard and mouse-controlled games using the popular Scratch software in the forthcoming weeks and will hopefully blog about what we achieve.
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