In Session 5 my group and I created a scratch activity which had a cross curricular link with art. My group consisted of Zoe Richardson and Emma Herd and we all liked the look of the spirogram shapes that can be created using scratch. From this we decided to create a plugged and a unplugged activity.
Unplugged activity
Our unplugged activity involved using the spirogram tools to create a spirogram on paper. These are very cheap resources, are very simple to use and can create some beautiful designs.
To differentiate this we planned to hand out different complexity of spirograph dependant on the ability of the child and the higher ability child may use more than one colour. The spirograph that the child has just created will now act as a plan for our next activity.
Plugged Activity
Children will then try to recreate their spirograph using the scratch software. Children will have time to experiment with the different shapes that they can make and will try to create a ‘best fit’ to match their design.
Both these activities will give children the chance to practise creating algorithms and debugging their algorithms through trial and error.