Scratch Cards

pranjalsaloni

46 Scratch Cards

By: (Author not specified, resource by Scratch.mit.edu)

Scratch Cards

These Scratch cards are a fun resource designed both to teach students about how to use Scratch and to give ideas for what to do in the program. There are hundreds of cards, ranging from quite simple and basic, like animating a name card to more complex tasks like making entire musical compositions in Scratch. This resource is great for students, but I’d argue it’s also helpful for educators trying to learn the ins and outs of Scratch and helping think more computationally.

The cards could be useful in helping introduce Scratch to an unfamiliar audience or to give students some inspiration and direction. Moreover, they can be used to help students think more computationally or mathematically as they outline how to code specific things but can help develop transferable skills like tinkering and troubleshooting. One drawback of this resource is it’s probably a bit basic for an experienced Scratcher and thus doesn’t offer much for students who already have a good grasp on the program, though some of them can get a little more complicated, so I’d direct those students there.

Introduction:

For a class with limited to no experience with Scratch who I wanted to try out the program, I would have students pick whatever card struck their interest, sharing if necessary, and let them try their best to code whatever’s on the cards. From there, let your students mess around and try their best, tinkering, demonstrating their thought processes and methods as they go.

Because I think the cards lend themselves to introductory work, I would caution against trying to incorporate cross-curricular work for the whole class for simplicity’s sake (but if a student wants to code some art or music, great!) but after the class has had some success with the cards, you could then leverage their newfound skills and interests into future lessons in any subject you wanted.