Whizara’s Scratch Junior programming course offers a fun way for young students to learn programming fundamentals as they explore and develop imaginative stories, animations and games using MIT’s Scratch Junior drag and drop visual programming interface. Students learn programming concepts and Scratch Junior specific concepts including motion, looks, sound, loops, events and get creative with designing, drawing, recording and storyboarding personalized projects. The course further reinforces computational concepts of sequencing, pattern recognition, parallelism and algorithmic thinking. A Tablet or Chromebook with internet connectivity is required to join the course. More on supported devices can be found here: https://www.scratchjr.org/about/faq
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COURSE DURATION:
15 hours
Course Outline
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Project 1 - My First Animation
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Learners explore the Scratch Jr. user interface and learn how to add characters and backdrops. They use the concept of sequences to animate a simple and fun story where a ‘character’ performs their morning fitness jogging routine. They are introduced to motion blocks, the ‘say’ block, and the ‘Start on Green Flag’ block. The purpose of the project is to introduce learners to the user interface and enable them to trigger blocks or combinations of blocks through event-based programming.
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Lesson 1: The Scratch Jr. User Interface:
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Learners are introduced to the concept of sequences and block-based programming as they attempt activities that involve following a series of instructions. They are introduced to Scratch Jr. and explore the user interface of this platform.
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Lesson 2: The Scratch Jr. Stage:
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Learners complete the layout and design aspects of their animation and discuss the programming logic needed for the animation.
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Lesson 3: Animation Part 1:
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Learners complete developing and debugging the program.
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Lesson 4: Animation Part 2:
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Learners complete developing and debugging the program.
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Project 2 - Lost
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Learners storyboard and develop an animation where a couple of characters explore strange and new places.. They explore ‘trigger’ blocks such as the ‘Start on Green Flag’ block, sound blocks, and understand how parallelism is used to trigger multiple actions in parallel.
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Lesson 5: Adding Characters and Backdrops:
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Learners storyboard the story as a sequence of events. They add the necessary sprites and backdrops to their project.
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Lesson 6: Animating One Character:
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Learners decompose the movement of one character in the form of a series of steps. They add the required code for the character. They are introduced to sound blocks and proceed to add sounds for one character.
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Lesson 7: Animating Multiple Characters:
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Learners decompose the movement of the second character in the form of a series of steps. They add the required code for the movement and sounds of the second character. They understand the concept of parallelism and how it can be used to trigger actions in parallel.
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Project 3 – The Haunted Mansion
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Learners storyboard and develop an animation of a haunted house. They are introduced to the ‘Start on Tap’ trigger block, the ‘repeat’ block, and the ‘set speed block’. They understand the concept of iterations and learn how to use iterations in their programs to make them more efficient.
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Lesson 8: Adding Characters and Backdrops:
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Learners storyboard the story as a sequence of events. They add the necessary characters and backdrops to their project. They are introduced to the ‘Start on Tap’ block, which is a ‘trigger’ block.
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Lesson 9: Animation without Repeat:
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Learners decompose the story animation into a series of steps and complete coding for their story without using the repeat block.
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Lesson 10: Animation with Repeat:
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Learners are introduced to the concept of iterations in programming. They rewrite their programs using the ‘repeat’ block and understand how iterations can be used to make programs more efficient.
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Project 4 – Get, Set, Go!
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Learners storyboard and develop an animation in which they describe the journey of a rocket, from take-off to landing. They are introduced to the concept of ‘pages’ in Scratch Jr. and the ‘Send Message’ and ‘Start on Message' blocks. They use these concepts to develop a multi-page story where a character seems to travel from one backdrop to another. They also learn how to customize or create new characters and backdrops and learn how to use these created or customized elements in their projects.
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Lesson 11: Adding Characters and Backgrounds:
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Learners storyboard the story as a sequence of events. They add the necessary characters and backdrops to their project. They are introduced to the concept of pages and the ‘Send Message’ and ‘Start on Message Blocks’.
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Lesson 12: Animation Part 1:
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Learners learn how to customize and create their own characters and backdrops. Learners decompose the output into a series of steps and complete coding for one page of their story.
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Lesson 13: Animation Part 2
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Learners add multiple pages to their project and complete the animation.
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Project 5 (Design Challenge) – The Synthesis Project
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Students are challenged to use all the concepts they have learned in previous projects to create an original animation or game. They use motion blocks, looks blocks, control blocks, trigger blocks, and sound blocks along with concepts such as sequences, parallelism, event-based programming, and control structures (iterations and ‘wait’) to develop their output.
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Lesson 14: Project Ideation:
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Learners storyboard their ideas as a sequence of events. They develop a list of characters and backgrounds needed for a project and add them. They customize characters and backdrops as required. They define the starting conditions, the number of pages, the events on each page, and the ending conditions of the animation.
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Lesson 15: Project Prototype:
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Learners add the required programming logic for their animations, and test, evaluate, and refine them.

Scratch Junior Programming
K-2

Approved for Standards Alignment


Approved for Quality PD

Member
Jake H, Principal, St Johns Lutheran
"We have had students interested in coding, but did not have staff with content knowledge to teach it. Whizara did a wonderful job of providing the curriculum and the expertise to give our students great success with their first experience in coding. The students grew tremendously throughout the class, as the instructor was kind, knowledgeable and related well with the students. The scope and sequence of the curriculum was excellent and I couldn’t believe how much progress the students made in just 10 weeks. Our school looks forward to working with Whizara again in the future! "
Hattie M, Founder, Crete Academy
"Whizara program further developed our students' creativity. Using the program not only taught them coding but also critical thinking and reasoning skills that go beyond coding and support students in all subjects. "
Cindy J, Principal, Santa Fe Springs Christian School