Grade 4: Final Computer Science Lesson

In our final lesson, students reviewed all of the Scratch programs they had written and chose the one they are most proud of to post on their e-portfolios. We then had a demo of a "Fruit Band" Scratch program, which uses a MaKey MaKey to allow us to use real bananas, apples and potatoes to control our program!

Grade 4: January Lessons

In January, Grade 4 students started off by creating their very own Maze game in Scratch. The logic and control for this game is simple once you know it, but getting their was sometimes challenging! Also, unexpected tricks, like not having a Sprite centred in the design space created some confusing bugs.

Next, students practised using the "broadcast" and "when I receive" blocks in Scratch to tell a simple story using conversation between two (or usually more!) characters.

Then, students started work on a Choose Your Own Adventure story, where the reader was asked to provide input (from they keyboard, while the program is running) to decide how the story will end.

Grade 4: December Lessons

In December, students took on a longer term project and used Scratch to create an interactive quiz game. First, questions relating to their current Unit of Inquiry, Evolving Earth, were written. Then, students implemented their quizzes within Scratch. The final programs were on display at our annual Holiday Extravaganza concert for parents and other students to view.

Grade 4 November 17 Lesson Plan - Scratch Challenges

This week, students will continue working on Scratch challenges, adopted from the Scratch Starter Projects. This week's challenges are:

• Maze Starter
• Pong Starter
• Multiplication Game

Grade 4, November 10 Lesson - Scratch Challenges

This week, students worked on the following Scratch Challenges (the first three are adopted from the Starter Projects available here on the Scratch website):

• Teens in the Castle
• Dress Up Tera
• Spiral Maker
• Interactive Quiz Game

Grade 4 November 3: More Scratch

This week, students will continue exploring in Scratch by modifying these starter projects:

• Five Facts about Me
• Teens at the Castle
• Paint with Gobo
• Animal Gobo

The first three projects are available from the Scratch Starter Project page while the last is my own creation.

Grade 4 October 27, 2014 - Back to Scratch

This week, students started using Scratch again, the block based computer programming language that had been introduced last year. Students started with existing Scratch projects and added more details: extra commands to make a Wizard perform more spells, and changing a Gobo hide and seek game to make is easier or harder. Some students also wrote their own original projects that allowed a player to try to guess a number between 1 and 100.

Grade 4, October 20 Lesson Plan: Conditionals

This week, we will learn what a conditional is in computer science (an if ..., then... else clause.) We will practise using conditional statements with card games, with code.org "Bee: Conditional" challenges, and if time permits, with Scratch Challenges.

Grade 3 aand 4, Lesson 5: More Loops (October 6, 2014)

This week, students practised finding and writing loops using paper activity sheets - no internet connection problems here! We then had a lot of fun using loops in our own Hopscotch programs, or some students continued to work on their code.org challenges.

Grade 4: Lesson 4 - Getting Loopy (September 29, 2014)

This week, we will learn what is meant by a loop in computer science, and find examples of items around the classroom that could be drawn using loops. Then we will practise using loops with the code.org "Maze:Loops" activities, and by using the "Repeat" and "Repeat Forever" blocks in Hopscotch.

Grade 4, Lesson 3: Perseverance; Letter Drawing (Septemeber 22, 2014)

Perseverance is a very important skill in computer programming. In this class we will build a tower using only q-tips and marshmallows that is strong enough to hold a book. Then, each student will develop an algorithm to draw the first letter of their name in Hopscotch.

Grade 4, Lesson 2: Real Life Algorithms (September 15, 2014)

Today in class we talked about real life algorithms, such as getting ready for school in the morning. Students then created an algorithm for how to fold a paper airplane, and then tested them out by following each other's instructions to actually build a plane. We finished off by continuing work on the code.org Artist Sequence activities.

Grade 4, Lesson 1: Graph Paper Programming (September 8)

Today we learned the word algorithm and did the first "unplugged" activity in Course 2 on http://code.org called Graph Paper Programming. Great first class!