OVERVIEW

Activity Overview:

Using a Scratch Jr. activity, students will program different alphabet letter sprites to line up in alphabetical order. The purpose of this activity is to integrate the literacy skill of alphabetizing with the programing of a control sequence in computer science.

Meta description

• Subject Area: Computer Science, Reading/Language Arts
• Grade Level : K-2
• Computer Science Domains:
  • Algorithms and Programming
• Computer Science Principles:
  • Recognizing and Defining Computational Problems, Developing and Using Abstractions, Creating Computational Artifacts, Testing and Refining Computational Artifacts
• Materials:
  • Scratch Jr.
• Considerations: +

Lesson Plan

Overview

Using a Scratch Jr. activity, students will program different alphabet letter sprites to line up in alphabetical order. The purpose of this activity is to integrate the literacy skill of alphabetizing with the programing of a control sequence in computer science.

ASSESSMENT PRE/POST-TEST

Ask them what alphabetical or abc order is? What type of blocks they might need to use? What problems do they think they will come across?

OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to alphabetize different alphabet sprites using a control sequence in the programming language.

CATCH/HOOK

The library uses many different resources to put books in their correct location on the shelf. Two of these ways are alphabetical order and different algorithms (sets of step by step instructions) to get them to their home on the shelf.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

Students will need one to one iPad devices.

Before Activity

On white board show them the scrambled alphabet sprites. Ask them what alphabetical or abc order is? Ask them the types of blocks they might use to put the sprites in alphabetical order? What problems do they think they will come across? Remind them that they aren’t using their finger to move the sprite. Show them one example with the letter A sprite. Work together as a class to get the letter B sprite next to the A sprite.

During Activity

Remind them that they aren’t using their finger to move the sprite. Allow students to work together to problem solve.

Post Activity Ask them what alphabetical or abc order is? Ask them the types of blocks they might use to put the sprites in alphabetical order? What problems do they think they will come across? I use a lot of screen sharing in this process so the kids can see what other kids did.

Supplements

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REVIEW

What worked well?

STANDARDS