Coding is a matter of sequencing and logical thinking, which are exactly what ScratchJr focuses on developing during this early stage of learning to code. Through creation, realization, expressing and development, students do not only learn coding in a happy and relaxing way, but, even more importantly, also achieve all-rounded self-development.
It is our belief to “create beyond limitation”, which shall also be the goal of every learners of ScratchJr. Although with very limited knowledge and experience of coding, all of them are able to create their own unique, lively and creative stories and animations. We encourage our students to think and create independently, so they will be given this chance from establishing the storyline, creating the characters, to working out the coding instructions and sequences, all with their own ideas, imagination and will.
“Why did the turtle win the race over the rabbit? I actually wish that the rabbit could win it.”
“Can men go to Mars? Can I take my kitten with me to the Mars?”
“I wish my dog can talk. Because I would like to sing along with him”
These are all real conversations in our RoboCode classrooms. We all know that children always have a lot of imaginative thoughts that might be unrealistic or impractical (yet) in reality. However, this is the foundation of one’s creativity that should not be suppressed at all. They could actually be visionary; who can imagine everybody is holding a mobile phone today half a century ago. Therefore, during our coding classes of ScratchJr, with the simple programming concepts, they can realize all their imaginary, fictional, crazy ideas in front of them.
We often heard from the parents we met, “RoboCoders all have one trait in common – with a high level of self-confidence”. This is all because we always encourage our students to express themselves freely. You might have aware that there is a project presentation session in any of the RoboCode courses for each student. It is the time when they have to stand in front of the class for a mini public speaking, to present and tell the animated story that they have created during the course. At the same time, they also have to explain the logics and coding concepts that they have learnt and applied in their story. Public speaking is a very important skill and experience that all children have to acquire, which is definitely essential for their school interviews and also socializing with peers in the future. Through our training and encouragement, it is expected that our RoboCoders shall gradually turn from reactive to proactive, from shy to confident.
For our ScratchJr courses, we are not only focusing on teaching the computer programming techniques on a tablet. We actually deem personal development on the students even more substantial. Through completing different coding challenges, they are able to build up their self-esteem and being self-assured. Hurdles are avoidable along the learning path, which coding often requires a great deal of effort for debugging or when the outcomes deviate from what is expected. Then this is the best moment to encourage our students to look for the problem themselves and to solve them. Repeated practices and achievements shall gradually foster their self-learning and problem-solving abilities.
Course Content
ScratchJr allows young children to learn the concept and basic sequence of coding. Just like playing jigsaw puzzle, complicated programming scripts are simplified to coding blocks. Coding is done by dragging the blocks together correctly in sequence; the characters can then follow the commands of the codes to make up an animated story. ScratchJr fosters the children’s creativity and imagination without limitations. By creating stories on their electronic tablets, the children can create their own animations, make the characters move, jump, run, speak and more, simply through sequencing the coding blocks. As imagination shall have no border, ScratchJr not only allows standard or built-in characters, your children can even design their own most loved characters, and also doing the dubbing for each of them with a microphone. So that each of their stories is definitely very unique and personal.
Final Project
Before completion of the course, it is time for each student to consolidate the skills and coding techniques they have learnt by designing a unique animation by ScratchJr. And during the very last lesson, each of them will become a public speaker, presenting and demonstrating their own interesting stories in front of the tutor and their classmates.
What will you get after completing the course?
- Clipped video of final project presentation
- Overall learning evaluation report
- Tutor’s comments and recommendations
- Course-completion certificate
Target Students
ScratchJr is for children aged 4.5 to 5.5. Every child is welcomed to join us on the magical coding journey, that prior coding experience is not necessary.
Things You Need
Nothing is needed, except an open and creative mind. We will provide all learning material during the course.
Level 1
The first level would be an elementary session of coding. The class will learn about the functions and uses of 2-3 coding blocks on each lesson. Beginning with simple games or daily-lives examples, the student can easily understand the function and coding concepts of each block, and followed by demonstration and explanation. When the students are able to master the coding blocks, they will be asked to do simple tasks or create simple stories with the blocks. This trains up their problem-solving skill and boosts creativity. Practice makes perfect indeed also applies to coding, which is all about the accumulation of experiences. Therefore, in the beginning of each lesson, our tutors would make sure the class is all clear about the coding blocks or concepts that have been taught in the previous lesson, by doing some basic revision. And when the students creating their animated stories, they are expected to apply not only the coding blocks or skills learned during that one lesson, but to grasp a comprehensive understanding of everything they have learnt in the past.
Level 2
After level 1, the student should be able to master the uses of each of the coding blocks. And they will be focusing on creating more sophisticated and complete stories using more variety of those coding blocks in level 2. Instead of having only one character in a story, they will advance to create more characters which each of them doing different actions. And the stories will be having more scenes, so the coding commands shall involve scene changing as well, to make it more interesting and creative. So at this level, it requires and therefore trains up logical thinking when the young coders need to manage the “codes blocks” for different characters in parallel for different scenes, while not messing up the sequences of them. Upon completing level 2 of this course, the students would be able to design more complicated animations as well as simple games. By creating more games and stories on their own using the coding blocks flexibly and creatively, they will be getting more familiarized with how coding works and at the same time enhancing their logical thinking ability.
ScratchJr builds a strong foundation of coding in every child. After they complete the 2 levels of the course, we will give personalized recommendation and arrangement regarding their next step for more advanced courses.