S3 CfE Scratch Unit

As part of our new S3 course I’ll teach the pupils Scratch using a mixture of written materials and some video tutorials from the Teach ICT website –
http://www.teach-ict.com/programming/scratch/scratch_home.htm.
Before the end of unit assessment where pupils design and implement their own maze game I do a lesson on sensors and let the pupils use the getting started with Pico boards notes – http://www.picocricket.com/pdfs/Getting_Started_With_PicoBoards.pdf

I introduce the board using my visualiser, pointing out the various sensors, then let pupils work away.

I was slightly limited by the fact that I could only cobble together 5 micro USB cables (these do not come with the kits unfortunately) so pupils work with learning partners and share boards between groups. Having said that the pupils respond really well and get stuck in taking the notes and adding extra functionality to the projects.

Next steps…

I found a tutorial on using the pico board as a controller for  a driving game using the slider to steer left and right.

http://scratch.mit.edu/tags/view/picoboard