Add sounds and music (10+ minutes):
3+ minute review
Review how to randomize the pitch of a single sound. Encourage coders to add unique sounds for each time they gain or lose a point, or when a variable changes.

7+ minute coding time and 1-on-1 facilitating
Give time for coders to add their own sounds, music, and audio effects.

Video: Customize sounds (3:21)
Quick Reference Guide: Click here

Video: Randomize a single sound (3:08)
Quick reference guide: Click here

Suggested questions:

• What other sounds or music could you add to your project?
• How can you vary the sounds and music to make them more interesting?
  • Can you make the music speed up or slow down depending on how much time is left in the game or a player’s score?
• How else could you randomize the sound and music?
• What else could you randomize in this project?
• What sound effects could you use in the Sounds tab to change the way your recording sounds?
• What do each of the tools in the Sounds tab do?

Fill the bowl (10+ minutes):
3+ minute review and demonstration
Review how we indicated buttons were pressed in previous projects (see the resources on the right). Indicate we can do something similar to make the basket look like it’s filled up. Pull up the Food sprite’s code in the quick reference guide to demonstrate we can add a message that starts code in the Bowl sprite to make it look like it is filling up.

7+ minute coding time and 1-on-1 facilitating
Leave your code on the screen and give coders time to create something similar. Encourage peer-to-peer assistance and facilitate 1-on-1 as needed.

Video: Fill the bowl (2:28)
Quick reference guide: Click here

Video: Indicate a button is pressed (2:55)
Quick reference guide: Click here

Suggested questions:

• What other looks blocks could you use to make the bowl appear like something landed in it?
  • Could we add other blocks besides looks blocks?

Make good and bad sprites (10+ minutes):
3+ minute demonstration
Demonstrate how to right click on a sprite and duplicate to make another falling sprite. Indicate that we should change some of the numbers inside the sprite so it’s not exactly the same as the other falling sprites. Demonstrate how to make a bad sprite (e.g., unhealthy food) that causes you to lose points if catch it in your bowl; however, you don’t lose any points if it falls on the floor.

7+ minute coding time and 1-on-1 facilitating
Leave your code on the screen and give coders time to create something similar. Encourage peer-to-peer assistance and facilitate 1-on-1 as needed.

Video: Make good and bad sprites (2:51)
Quick reference guide: Click here

Suggested questions:

• Can you make it so more sprites appear when the player has a high score and fewer sprites appear when you have a low score?
• How can you make the different sprites fall differently?
  • Will they all fall at the same speed or will some fall at different speeds?
  • Will they all fall straight down or will some glide at an angle?
    • What about randomly falling both left and right?
• How will you know you have too many falling sprites?

Create a game over condition (10+ minutes):
3+ minute demonstration
Ask the class some different ways a game like this might end (e.g., run out of time, score falls below 0, drop too many sprites, etc.). Use the video or quick reference guide to demonstrate different examples of creating a game over condition.

7+ minute coding time and 1-on-1 facilitating
Leave your examples on the screen and give coders time to create something similar. Encourage peer-to-peer assistance and facilitate 1-on-1 as needed.

Video: Create a game over condition (4:34)
Quick reference guide: Click here

Suggested questions:

• Can a player win/lose in your game or will it go on forever?
  • When might a player lose?
  • When might a player win?
  • What code would you need to do that?

Create a high score (10+ minutes):
3+ minute demonstration
Demonstrate how to create a cloud variable and discuss how they are different than a regular variable (i.e., a regular variable will not save the value for other players to see; however, a cloud variable will). Demonstrate how to create a high score function by checking to see if the score is greater than the high score. Point out that we don’t set our high score to 0 when the game begins, because we want the high score to remain for the next play through.

7+ minute coding time and 1-on-1 facilitating
Leave your examples on the screen and give coders time to create something similar. Encourage peer-to-peer assistance and facilitate 1-on-1 as needed.

Video: Create a high score (3:27)
Quick reference guide: Click here

Suggested questions:

• What other projects could you add a score to?
  • What about a high score?
• When would you need to use a cloud variable and when would you need to use a regular variable?

Create a start button (10+ minutes):
5+ minute demonstration
Review how to create a button labeled “Start.” Demonstrate how to make the button show when the green flag is clicked and hide when the sprite is clicked. Create a new broadcast message block named “Start” and add it to the when this sprite clicked block. Replace all of the other when green flag clicked blocks with a when I receive Start blocks.

If coders are more advanced, demonstrate how the Sprite Catcher project uses multiple start buttons to change the theme of the game.

5+ minutes to code their project and 1-on-1 facilitating
Leave your code on the screen and give coders time to add the code to their project. Encourage peer-to-peer assistance and facilitate 1-on-1 as needed.

Video: Create a start button (3:24)
Quick reference guide: Click here

Suggested questions:

• Can you create multiple buttons for different themes?
  • What about a single button that toggles between two themes?
  • How could you give the player the option to switch between these themes while playing the game?
• How could you make it so the game changes themes when a player reaches the next level?

Make clones (Advanced) (20+ minutes):
5+ minute demonstration
Instead of creating several different versions of the same sprite, we can have one sprite with several copies that use the clone blocks. Demonstrate how the example project has several different food sprites fall down; however, there’s only one Food sprite. Explain how each of the following functions and chunks of code work together:

1. How the “Make clones after waiting a random amount” creates up to three copies of the same spite
2. Why there are two when I start as a clone blocks
3. How we gain or lose points in the “Check costume and change score” function
4. Why we need to reset each clone when it starts (“Reset clone”)
5. How the “If the clone isn’t a doughnut, lose a point” function won’t lose a point if the costume is the doughnut costume (costume number = 5)

15+ minute coding time and 1-on-1 facilitating
Leave your examples on the screen and give coders time to create something similar. Encourage peer-to-peer assistance and facilitate 1-on-1 as needed.

Video: Make clones (Advanced) (4:23)
Quick reference guide: Click here

Suggested questions:

• What other projects could you add clones to?
  • What would you need to change in your code to make the clones work properly?
• When would you need to use a cloud variable and when would you need to use a regular variable?

Use the example project as a guide (as needed)
At some point, coders might get stuck or run out of ideas. Rather than explaining to them how to do something, ask them to open the example project, read the comments inside the various sprites and then look at the code to see if they can figure out how to solve their problem. Although this is a very open-ended approach, this models a common coding practice that helps coders become independent learners.

Resource: Example project

Facilitation Suggestion: Some coders may not thrive in inquiry based approaches to learning, so we can encourage them to use the Tutorials to get more ideas for their projects; however, we may need to remind coders the suggestions provided by Scratch are not specific to our projects, so it may create some unwanted results unless the code is modified to match our own intentions.

Add even more (30+ minutes, or at least one class):
If time permits and coders are interested in this project, encourage coders to explore what else they can create in Scratch by trying out new blocks and reviewing previous projects to get ideas for this project. When changes are made, encourage them to alter their comments to reflect the changes (either in the moment or at the end of class).

While facilitating this process, monitor to make sure coders don’t stick with one feature for too long. In particular, coders like to edit their sprites/backgrounds by painting on them or taking photos, or listen to the built-in sounds in Scratch. It may help to set a timer for creation processes outside of using blocks so coders focus their efforts on coding.

Facilitation Suggestion: Some coders may not thrive in inquiry based approaches to learning, so we can encourage them to use the Tutorials to get more ideas for their projects; however, we may need to remind coders the suggestions provided by Scratch are not specific to our projects, so it may create some unwanted results unless the code is modified to match our own intentions.

Suggested questions:

• What else can you do with Scratch?
• What do you think the other blocks do?
  • Can you make your project do ______?
• What other sprites can you add to your project?
• What have you learned in other projects that you could use in this project?
• Can you add more user control than demonstrated?
• What other variables blocks might you use in your project?
• Could you add in other sprites as enemies or power ups?
• Could you make your game multiplayer?

Similar projects:
Have coders explore the code of other peers in their class, or on a project studio dedicated to this project. Encourage coders to ask questions about each other’s code. When changes are made, encourage coders to alter their comments to reflect the changes (either in the moment or at the end of class).

Watch this video (3:20) if you are unsure how to use a project studio.

Note: Coders may need a gentle reminder we are looking at other projects to get ideas for our own project, not to simply play around. For example, “look for five minutes,” “look at no more than five other projects,” “find three projects that each do one thing you would like to add to your project,” or “find X number of projects that are similar to the project we are creating.”

Generic questions:

• What are some ways you can expand this project beyond what it can already do?
• How is this project similar (or different) to something you worked on today?
• What blocks did they use that you didn’t use?
  • What do you think those blocks do?
• What’s something you like about their project that you could add to your project?
• How might we add player controls to this project?
• How might you use variables blocks in this project?
• If the project is not a game, could you turn this project into a game?
• If the project is a game, could you turn it into a different kind of game?