I am teaching Scratch at an after-school program. This is middle school, mostly 7th grade boys. I am looking for a structured, organized set of lesson plans. I am thinking of something within the Scratch platform. Like a series of games that introduce a new idea with every game. Any ideas……John in Asheville NC

Hi John! I would suggest them going to project ideas! They can bounce ideas off of each other!

But, I did find 2 great resources for some prepared lesson plans!

This is the link to the Things to Try page!
This one is the link to the Creativity Guide (This needs a download!)

I think you could use some of the tutorials that Scratch itself gives you on the right side of the screen; such as the pong game. After a while, just try to teach the students what different blocks do.
After a bit of prepared assignments, you can do something that would definitely keep things interesting; challenge the students to make anything they'd like with a certain set of parameters (such as which blocks you must use, what extra you can do, etc.) to let their creativity run wild! One of the best parts of programming is being able to create (almost) anything you'd like with a bit of practice and hard work.

What if the class joined together to make one big epic project and you could teach them about the code as they go?

SolarWind12 wrote:

What if the class joined together to make one big epic project and you could teach them about the code as they go?

That would be difficult as students probably can't work on the same project at the same time. They would have to all create little bits and pieces of the project and put them together at the same time. This is a link of an example.

codeclubprojects.org has some pretty easy lessons. You can let them work through the prepared projects themselves or lead them together. Inside the editor of scratch itself on the right side with info and such there are a few projects worth doing to learn some basic principles.