Scratch Tinkering Activity

Age: 5-11 years (please tailor to your class)

Type: Scratch

Curriculum Links to: computing

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RESOURCE OVERVIEW:

This activity involves two main tasks. Firstly, pupils tinker with an existing Scratch program, which is an animation of two characters chatting, before then tinkering with a blank project in Scratch.

PUPIL OBJECTIVES:

I can explore Scratch for myself.

TEACHING ASSESSMENT OPPORTUNITIES:

The open questions provided above and used throughout this tinkering activity will both help encourage, and gauge, pupils’ developing understanding of Scratch.
Observe pupils in their exploration. Are pupils confident to tinker independently or do they wait for instruction? Do they copy others or try new and novel ways of using the equipment?
Listen to their discussion about tinkering with their peers, do they ask other’s questions about how they did things, do they suggest ideas? Are they open to new ideas and build on others ideas to discover more.

LESSON TIMING: 40 min

This lesson in your curriculum

England

Scotland

Northern Ireland

Wales

Computing

Create and debug simple programs
Design, write and debug programs that accomplish specific goals

Computing Science

Understanding the world through computational thinking
Designing, building and testing computing solutions

Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities (TSPC)

Ask focused questions
Communicate with a sense of audience and purpose
Make links between cause and effect
Generate possible solutions, try out alternative approaches, and evaluate outcomes
Experiment with ideas and questions
Learn from and value other people’s ideas
Make ideas real by experimenting with different designs, actions and outcomes
See opportunities in mistakes and failures

UICT – Interactive Design

F/KS1

Explore a digital environment using simple commands e.g. take an existing sprite and use pre-existing commands to make it move or change
Enter commands to create movement or change, e.g. change the appearance of a sprite or make a sprite move in more than one direction
Talk about how to improve their work

KS2

Solve problems using a digital device e.g. create a simple Scratch project or use the ‘repeat’ command to create patterns or shapes using Scratch
Investigate and solve problems in a digital environment e.g. access and view Scratch projects and modify these for their own use, or create their own Scratch project showing an awareness of audience

Input more complex sequences of commands, e.g. in Scratch use the ‘broadcast’ and ‘when I receive’ commands within a script

AoLE
Science and Technology

What Matters Statement
Computation is the foundation for our digital world

Descriptions of learning
Progression Step 2

I can safely use a range of tools, materials and equipment to construct for a variety of reasons.

Related Resources

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Scratch Tinkering Activity

Not specified
Concepts / Approaches:: Programming, Tinkering
Curriculum Links:: English

Pupils tinker with Scratch to find out how it works and then adapt it to make their own activity.

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Step Forward

World Map Logic Activity

Age:: 5-7 years
Concepts / Approaches:: Tinkering, Programming, Logic
Curriculum Links:: Geography

Pupils look at sequences of commands and use logical reasoning to predict what they do. They then program their commands to see if their predictions are correct.

The World Map Logic Activity has been rated 5 stars

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