We at the DevTech Research Group at Tufts University hope this message finds you and your
loved ones in good health.
Dr. Marina Bers (professor, department chair at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study
and Human Development and director of DevTech Research Group) taught a course titled
CSHD 145: Technological Tools for Playful Learning this Spring.
For the course's final project, undergraduate and graduate students from across disciplines
at Tufts University created 3-hour literacy-based curricula to help children learn to code using
platforms such as ScratchJr.
We wanted to share their curricula with you as they might be helpful resources to keep your kids
engaged in educational ways in the midst of this pandemic.
Shared Lesson Plans and Resouces
Note- the title links to the lesson plans created in Google Docs.
You will need to go to the File menu and make a copy.
by Kallisti St. John & Katey Yang
The focus of this curriculum is for the child to complete interactive challenges and activities with the recorded video and for the parent to help set up with the ultimate goal of creating their own masterpiece through Scratch Jr. This enables the child to be creative on their own with little outside influence, and it also enforces individual problem solving and critical thinking.
by Khanh Nguyen, Nayoung Kim & Annie Huang
This curriculum allows children to create their own characters with superpowers through different coding blocks. With the character they created, they will learn to deal with conflicts, problem-solving, and find resolutions to conflicts. This curriculum will also introduce concepts of storytelling and literacy.
by Yifan Zuo & Maitreyi Kale
This curriculum exposes children to the basics of coding with ScratchJr while teaching them to recognize important elements of stories and helpful thought processes that go into writing them. Including three e-books that will be incorporated into each session: Session One covers word bubbles and dialogue-writing, Session Two goes overtime sequence, and Session Three focuses on changing scenes in storytelling.
by Jen Gray & Rebecca Glass
Given the current situation, many parents are home with their children, who need frequent attention and stimulation. This curriculum offers a constructive and fun way to make the most of these circumstances by transforming our all-too familiar homes into creative hubs. This curriculum will make use of household objects to introduce powerful ideas of computer science.
by Juliana Harris & David Zabner
In this lesson, kids (ages 4-6) will learn to program using superheroes and ScratchJr. This lesson is unique in that it contains opportunities to practice programming without a screen, use a storyboard, work collaboratively, and build social-emotional skills. This curriculum includes printable cutouts of superheroes, ScratchJr programming blocks, and a storyboard.
by Abrina La Rose, Kianie Ramirez & Yaqara Patterson
This activity will provide health and safety tips for parents and guardians to partake in and discuss with their families. In this curriculum, there is a guide on how to use ScratchJr with photos included. Finally, it will provide activities for parents and children to collaborate.
If you are not familiar with the ScratchJr website it's you should take a look. Under the Learn tab, you can find Tips and Hints and under the Teach tab, you can find nine downloadable activities. I will feature these in a series of posts and make suggestions on how to use them. The first activity for example Drive Across the City can be integrated with maths and also makes a good story starter.
Once children have experienced the starter activities there are many more ideas to explore like the Playground Curriculum. I think Lesson 7 - Mini Golf will make for a fun challenge.
Mini Golf
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