I taught a week-long programming class for 8-12 year olds and needed some "sample projects" to get them going after I'd introduced a group of blocks and a programming concept. Others have asked about small sample programs to use, with the downside that if you load something in Scratch, the user can see how it's done and it doesn't require the kids to figure it out on their own. Scratch cards have a similar drawback, although we did use those as well.
So, I came up with a number of very small "mini-projects" that can be simply described to the kids (one short sentence) to implement; it usually takes no more than about 5 minutes for most to figure it out. They worked quite well for a quick introduction to the concept. I would do a 5-minute whiteboard "lecture" on the concept/blocks, and then give them a mini-project "assignment". Here they are:
1. Motion
a. Make the sprite follow the mouse
b. Make the sprite move with the arrow keys
2. Loops and variables
a. Make the sprite count to 10 using "say" when flag clicked
b. Make sure the count starts over from 1 the next time (initialization)
3. Messages
Make sprite A "say" something when you click on sprite B
4. Pen
a. Make a sprite draw when the mouse button is down
b. Make a sprite that changes the color of the pen when you click on it (incl. messages)
c. Make other sprites that change pen color, width, etc. (i.e. make a simple paint program)
I would introduce one of these mini-projects at the start of each session, and then let the kids take off on their own from there.
Anyone else have ideas for other mini-projects that could be used for other blocks/concepts (conditionals, sounds, sensing, etc.)?
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