Day Ten: Last Day

Today was my last and admittedly saddest day at Belmont Station.  It all flew by so fast and I'm just not ready to leave yet, especially when the kids ask me whether I'll come to teach them again next year.

At this point, all the second and third-grade groups have finished their Dice Simulators and a good portion have finished their music programs as well.  For the classes without Scratch logins, I gave them notecards with the Usernames and Passwords of the accounts they'd been using for these lessons so they could continue working on them if they wanted to.

I've really enjoyed my time at Belmont Station and hope that I have instilled an interest in coding within my students.  I'm glad to have had the chance to work with them and wish them luck in the future.

Day Nine: Fifth Grade Field Trip and Field Day

Today the second graders had their field day until 11 am and the fifth graders left on a field trip at 9:30 am.  To accommodate these events, I worked on a revised schedule and swapped my afternoon third-grade groups with my morning second-grade groups.

Day Eight: Music Program

Today we continued working on our music programs.  Above is an example of one of the student's projects.  Many of the kids have finished coding at least one instrument and are working on their second or third instruments.  Some are ready to start adding motion so we will work on that next time.

Day 7: Finishing Up The Games

Today, the remaining groups have basically finished up their Dice Simulators and played "Round the Clock."  It's a lot of fun watching them enjoy using something that they have worked so hard to create and code.  I hope they carry this excitement into the next project and enjoy working on the music program.

I'm happy to see that the groups that have moved onto the music program are having fun exploring the various sound options Scratch has to offer.

Day Six: Finishing Dice Simulator and Starting Music Program

Today, the groups that haven't finished their dice simulator continued working on those.  My lunch bunch has been especially enthusiastic about customizing their dice so they may be a bit slower to move onto the music program, but I'm sure their dice will be some of the B-E-S-T!

Day Five: Playing Dice Games

Today, unfortunately, the fifth graders were absent because of SOL testing.  I hope them all the best on their Math SOL and hopefully tomorrow the SOL testing will not overlap with our Java session.  In their absence, however, I decided to make a simple tour of my working space during the time we normally meet.

Day Four: Creating Dice Continued and Starting to Code in Scratch

Today, the students working on the Dice Simulator have made great progress!  Most of them are done creating the costumes for the die and have begun coding how to randomly generate different faces on the die when the roll button is pressed.  Some of them have even finished their Dice Simulator and will have a chance to play the Dice Games I prepared next time!