📚Teacher Guide

Use this to guide your learners through the activity

If learners have never used Scratch before, have them watch this intro video:

Synchronous activity outline:

Introduction: Review parts of speech (10 minutes)

1. Noun: person, place, thing, or idea

2. Verb: action word

3. Adjective: describes the noun, answers “what is it like?”

4. Adverb: describes the verb, answers “how is it happening?”

Challenge learners to find nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in a short excerpt. Here’s one from a book called “Neil Flambé and the Marco Polo Murders” by Kevin Sylvester

Antonio stepped inside the vault, letting the door almost close behind him. Then he gently lifted the edge of an ornate Persian rug. Underneath was a trapdoor. The second key opened that.

Resting inside the secret compartment was a golden box. It was decorated with emerald-eyed angels and mermaids, delicately wrought sundials, diamond-studded wind roses and carved sailing ships. Any thief who’d managed to get this far would grab the beautiful box, thinking it was the treasure. That, however, would be a mistake. The box was bolted to the floor; tugging it would release a spring-loaded knife.

Challenge #1 Introduce variables (10 minutes)

1. Have learners write down 5 nouns, 5 verbs, 5 adjectives, 5 adverbs

2. Create (silly) sentences by filling in this format:

The [ADJECTIVE] [NOUN] [VERB] [ADVERB].

Ex. (The blue elephant scribbles happily.)

Note: In the format sentence, the capitalized words are like boxes with labels that you can put a certain kind of stuff in. In coding, these labelled boxes are called variables. We usually have to tell the computer what kind of stuff is allowed to be in each box (a number, a word…) The results given by the computer depend on the actual value of each variable.

Challenge #2: Fill in a “mad lib” story together (10 minutes)

• http://www.madlibs.com/printables/ some free printable examples

• https://www.madtakes.com/index.php This site lets you make your own.

END SESSION 1.

Challenge #3: Using variables in Scratch (30 minutes)

Note: This lesson follows closely with the introduction to Scratch outlined on the learner instruction sheet as well as the online task in learner challenge #1.

1. Review the parts of speech and relate them to variables

2. Walk through of opening a new project in Scratch https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/ and key features of the workspace:
3. How to change your sprite

4. How to change your background

5. How to create a variable and assign a value

6. How to have your sprite say that variable

7. Allow learners to work on adding a second sprite and another variable to be used in making the sprite walk

END SESSION 2. Depending on your timeline, you may want to assign your learners to write the outline for their mad lib story so that they can focus on the coding during the next session.

Challenge #4: Make a “mad lib” story (30 minutes)

Options for doing this:

• Pencil and paper (or keyboard). Write a paragraph, remove some of the words and replace them with variables. Ask a friend or family member to help assign values to the variables.

• Use MadTakes: This is a bit more like coding, because you have to use special symbols to create the blanks.

• https://www.madtakes.com/createyourown.php
• Use Scratch. Depending on how familiar learners are with Scratch, you may need to give them some of the code as a seed

• Starting point: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/387119856
• You can click on “see inside” on the projects to see the code behind them

• Different type of mad lib scratch project example using backdrops, show variables, and hide variables: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/117910186/

Optional Extension:

Using lists within Scratch to create random stories or using Python to create a mad libs story (30-45 minutes)

These challenges are best laid out in the Extension challenge learner handout.

Scratch Lists:

A List is a variable type that let you have a list of different nouns, verbs, etc. You can have your code pick at random to fill in your story.

Example: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/387179639

Python:

• Tutorial: https://www.mikedane.com/programming-languages/python/building-a-mad-libs-game/
• Tutorial: https://teachwithict.weebly.com/python-mad-libs.html
• Editor: https://www.onlinegdb.com/online_python_compiler

Key Questions:

• What is coding?

• Why are the blocks different shapes and colours?

• What is a variable? When else might they be useful?

• What do you need to create an interesting story?

• How might you express yourself in writing and in coding?

• What parts of this challenge were difficult?

• How often did you test your code? What purpose did testing serve?

• What advice might you give to someone who is trying this challenge for the first time?

• Describe your thought process in creating this code.