By: Reagan Lawrence

Make Your Own Jumping Game in Scratch

This coding resource guides students through creating a jumping game in Scratch. The student will learn how to make their sprite jump, add obstacles, navigate around those obstacles, as well as, how to add sound effects to make the game more fun. An example of a game created using the code provided in the resource is linked below.
This resource is useful when starting your students with coding, as it is a fun hands-on introduction to Scratch; what student does not like games? The resource can be used in a way that encourages the students to explore the Scratch Program in a fun, interactive way. Through this activity, students can express their creativity by choosing the type of jumping game they want to create, selecting the characters (sprites), customizing backdrops, and making other design choices, such as, how fast they want the obstacle to appear or how high the character should jump, etc. In addition to creativity, students are given the opportunity to practice their problem solving and critical thinking skills. For instance, if their character is not moving the way they want, such as not jumping high enough, or if the game is just not functioning properly, the student must analyze their code and make adjustments to fix the issue. Through this process, students are developing perseverance and learning from their mistakes. Furthermore, the students can share the code to their game with other students in the classroom, allowing collaboration and peer learning to occur. By sharing their game with their classmates, students can feel proud about their work, while also learning more about Scratch and new strategies from their peers. Thus, by using this resource students are engaging in several important skills (creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, as well as, coding fundamentals) that they can take and apply to more complex coding projects later on.

An example of a Jumping Game Code

How to Use the Jumping Game Resource in Your Classroom

To use this resource in the classroom the first step as an educator is to become familiar with the code yourself. Take some time to create your own game and work through the resource as a student would to be able to support your students should any issues arise when they are working through their code. After that follow the following steps to implementing the resource in your classroom:

1. Show your students your jumping game.
2. Walk your students through your code, showing them where they can find particular blocks and discuss how you decided on the type of game you wanted to create (from your character choices, to the backdrop).
3. Provide your students with time to brainstorm their jumping game.
   • Some questions to help guide your students include: what will your sprite look like? What backdrop will you use? What obstacles will it need to jump over and why?
   • In this step have them write out their ideas on a sheet of paper or white board (pseudocode).
4. Once your students have decided on what type of game they want them to create, walk them through the resource, doing it together (project your computer screen to the whiteboard or smartboard so you can do it together)
5. Testing phase! Have your students run the game. Also problem solving phase, if the student needs to adapt their game.
6. Collaboration and Peer Review Phase.
   • Have students pair up and share their game.

Resource Information:

Tags: This resource can be used for several different courses. For instance, in Grade 7 & 8 Language, it can be used for storytelling. Students will create a story based on their game. For instance, did a princess need to escape a dragon, and along the way she is faced with many obstacles, etc. It can also be used in Grade 7 Science when learning about ecosystems. Can be used to teach students about habitats, etc.

URL to resource information: https://resources.scratch.mit.edu/www/cards/en/catch-cards.pdf (see page 144)

Cost: Free