If learners have never used Scratch before, have them watch this intro video:
Synchronous activity outline:
Introduction: Review parts of speech (10 minutes)
Noun: person, place, thing, or idea
Verb: action word
Adjective: describes the noun, answers “what is it like?”
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)
Have learners write down 5 nouns, 5 verbs, 5 adjectives, 5 adverbs
Create (silly) sentences by filling in this format:
The [ADJECTIVE] [NOUN][VERB][ADVERB].
Ex. (The blueelephantscribbles 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)
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.
Review the parts of speech and relate them to variables
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.
