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Scratch Programming Language Year 6 – Overview for teachers and parents with a list of curriculum resources
Scratch is a popular programming language and online community wherein children can program as well as share interactive media including games, stories, and animation with individuals from all across the globe. As children of various age groups learn coding and creating with Scratch, they will learn cognitive analysis, collaborative work, and to ask more intelligent questions. Scratch is designed and maintained by the research team of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the famous MIT Media Lab.
Whether you are a parent or an educator, you can help children learn Scratch programming language with great ease with the help of online tutorials available at Udemy and other online platforms. Udemy Scratch programming courses allow you to deliver easy-to-understand and simple coding language principles that kids of in the Year 6 school cohort can easily learn and comprehend. As a little tip, Look for courses with “byte-size” learning chunks that allow your children/students to consume according to their limited attention spans and come back to the learning when they feel fresh and curious.
What is Included in a Scratch Programming Course for Year 6?
Table of Contents
A Scratch programming language course for Year 6 typically includes and introduction to the basic concepts of programming along with interaction design with the help of the block-based programming concept of the language. The content has been designed for the students of 6th grade who might not have any prior experience to computer programming. Some of the important concepts or units that are covered in this curriculum are:
- In the first unit of the Scratch programming for Year 6, students are usually taught basic concepts of programming –including the study of the importance of computers, users, and programmers. The students get to learn how computers tend to process information and how they can write instructions for the given literal-minded machines. In this unit, the students will get started with Scratch while building an interactive environment.
- In the second unit of Scratch programming for grade 6th students, the students will get to learn about the overall structure of programming. The given unit is known to cover concepts like Booleans, loops, parallelism, and conditionals.
- The third unit of the given course is known to help students learn about solutions for effective and efficient programming. The unit is known to cover concepts like debugging and functions.
- The fourth unit in 6th grade Scratch programming is aimed at teaching students about creating an interactive game or application. This is usually the fun part that the kids have been waiting for! In this unit, the students gets to learn about important concepts like cloning, variables, and how to create dynamic interactions with the help of Scratch.
- 7th unit? How about time for fun playing the games the kids have made? Let the kids swap games and play in the world another has created. This aspect of social sharing and peer interaction is typically a very busy classroom (or virtual classroom) where crucial informal learning BETWEEN the students occurs. Because it is social and fun, it is likely to be the most memorable aspect of the entire course for many of the children. And perhaps the least work for the teacher, depending on how unruly the class gets, of course!
Description of the Course of Scratch Programming for 6th Grade
Students are going to learn about the basics of coding –starting from basic blocks. The Scratch programming language has been developed to be a fun learning session –just like a game.
The course has been designed for the beginners such that they will get an insight into the basics of the given programming language. With this course, the learners can learn basic coding as well as information about creating games and applications. The fact that makes this course highly interactive is the way in which it is offered to the students. The students are given the opportunity to learn about coding in a fun-filled environment as they get to learn about important science topics. The overall complexity of the programming language is hidden behind animations, characters, analogies, and immense fun.
After the completion of the Scratch programming course for year 6, the students will learn about text-based programming to get a hold of the overall coding. The entire content of the course has been designed to be great fun throughout. The students also get the opportunity to learn about how to create interactive effects and animations while creating clones of a wide range of interesting games on Scratch –including Flappy Bird, Pac-Man, Duck Hunt, and so more. The games that are taught in the given course are handpicked to optimize the overall learning of the science topics while having along the way.
Who can Use a Scratch Programming Course like this?
The Scratch programming course for 6th grade has been designed for:
- Teachers and parents who wish to offer their children the best learning skills along with ensuring fun throughout the learning session
- Beginners and kids who would like to learn coding in Scratch
- Anyone who might be new to the concept of Scratch programming and does not know where to start the course
Scratch has been specifically designed for young age group –especially 7-16 age range. However, people of all age groups –irrespective of the knowledge spectrum in the field of coding, can look forward to learning this interactive language. Young children can also opt for ScratchJr. It is a simplified version of the Scratch programming language that has been designed for the age group of 5-7 years.
List of 6th Grade Education resources and downloads from around the globe for Scratch curriculum delivery
Are you seeking specific examples of courses used by other teachers and institutions to teach Scratch to the 6th Grade? The list we have compiled below should help you get started in building your own curriculum;
- 5 Module Curriculum, suggested 4 hours per Module https://pdst.ie/sites/default/files/Scratch%20Participant%20Manual%202019.pdf
- Excellent Australian Curriculum example of Grade 3-6 Classroom ideas with a comprehensive list of detailed content descriptions for each idea branching into other topics such as Robotics https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/5895/classroom-ideas-3-6-scratch-activities.pdf
- Programming for Water Management – another Australian example, it is a very dry country with major drought issues afterall. In this example the curriculum is active problem solving of real-world water management problems using Scratch programming. Again targeted at the Year 5 and 6 level http://www.primezone.edu.au/uploaded_files/resource_uploads/import/TeachersGuide_Programming-for-Water-Mgt-Final.pdf
- A list of 22 Scratch Worksheets from Harvard University. Note that these are from 2009 and thus the interface and syntax details may need to be adapted to the version of Scratch you are using in your classroom https://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/resources/22-scratch-worksheets.html
- Three scratch exercises from the Harvard team in Scratch 1.4. These can be easily adapted to Scratch 2.0 or 3.0 https://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/resources/scratch-exercises-4-7.html
Udemy Scratch programming course has been designed for learners of all age groups and skills. Make the most of the programming fundamentals and coding for beginners and intermediates.
