introductory scratch projects with a story theme

I've written an introductory course in Scratch multimedia / coding. I teach it to year 7s. After some experimentation and thought I realised I could have a short story as a feature of all the projects. ie. as well as teaching a technique or Scratch skill, use that skill in a story context. This makes things more engaging for a broader range of students.

1) Weird animals

Cat barks, dog meows then add a third animal that makes a weird animal sound

2) Fly around

Butterfly moves 5 times, makes a sound, changes costumes with a speech bubble at the end

3) Say something

Cat has two speech bubbles and text to speech then changes into a banana. This introduces the text to voice extension.

4) Rooster wakes up Frank

The rooster crows, changes costumes, pauses between costume changes, returns to original costume. Then sends a message to another sprite, Frank, who responds.

5) Cat glides to mouse

I made a cat glides to mouse game. Students have to make a remix and then find the mouse co-ordinates and type the correct x and y values into a glide block.

6) Teleport

Avery expresses a desire to teleport. Then her wish comes true. But after that the stage does some weird things.

7) Dance then add a sound

Choose one of the Dance characters since they have more moves. Your character dances to music, says something at the end. Then record and add your own voice. Finally, choose the Spotlight backdrop and program the Stage to make the lights change colour

8) Music

Use the music sprites since they have more variety in sound. Create multiple instruments playing random sounds together. Make the random number equal to the number of different notes in the instruments drop down box. The instruments grow and shrink too

9) Two player maze game

Put two different balls on the screen. One of them is steered by the arrow keys. The other is steered by the w,a,s and d keys. Then make a target object and build a simple maze for the two players to navigate through

10) Scribble

What sort of scribbler are you? Test it out on a blank sheet of paper!

Get the pen extension. Then put the pen down. Start with: pen size = 1, move random (50 to 100), pen color 1 to 100 (ROYGBIV) and turn (1 to 360) (full circle). Repeat lots of times.

Then randomise pen size and experiment with variations of moving randomly. See if you can produce more interesting scribble than the example shown!

11) Interactive Whirl

Twist the squirrel by moving the mouse. The squirrel feels pain if you twist too much!