Month: June 2021

Make Code Club part of your summer school plans! 

Code Club provides the ideal in-person enrichment activity for a summer school, providing fun projects to build skills and confidence around coding concepts, along with important well-being needs. It’s also a great way to form friendships and feel part of the school community.

We share three key essentials, plus a NEW Summer of Sport activity to make sure that your summer school Code Club is a success! 

Make it fun!

Code Club is a fun, informal learning space, where young learners have the opportunity to explore and get creative together with code! Learn what topics and programming languages your coders are interested in, then take a look at our free step-by-step projects where coders are introduced to key coding concepts. 

North Ayrshire Council run Code Club summer schools, this is what they had to say: 

Just go for it. It’s going to be super fun. I mean, who doesn’t love Scratch? Don’t make it formal, it’s not school, it will be loud and a lot of wondering about with the kids seeing what each other is getting up to. And you don’t have to be a coding expert, Code Club has loads of excellent resources. 

Looking for that first fun project to work on at your summer school? Then why not create some noise in Scratch with ‘Rock band’! Learners will explore how to use code to change a sprite’s costume, make a sprite react to an input, and add sounds! 

Head outside

We know that being active helps us to stay healthy, both physically and mentally. Take your Code Club offline, head outside, and try these Raspberry Pi projects to explore coding concepts and computers! 

Computers in the real world: go for a walk and notice how technology interacts with everyday life. 

Pixel art unplugged project: club members learn how computers create and store images and how to use (x,y) coordinates. 

Compass coding: follow codes and compass directions to get back to camp!

Celebrate achievements 

Make time within each session for a show-and-tell, giving learners the opportunity to celebrate their projects and share their new skills together.

Celebrate everyone’s successes and download a Code Club certificate from your club’s dashboard. Think about sharing your achievements with the school community through a newsletter — young coders could even help write this! 

Could you use this great idea from North Ayrshire Council?

At the end of each day we encourage members to put a post on the wall about what they learned that day or what they most enjoyed.

On your marks, get set, go! 

To help you off the starting blocks for your summer school coding activities, dig out your tracksuits and participate in our Summer of Sport activity! We have handpicked six Scratch sport-themed projects, including a favourite ‘Beat the goalie’ to help you get started! Find out how your club can get involved.

Get in touch and let us know how you plan to use Code Club as part of your summer school activities. Remember to share your achievements with us on Twitter at Code Club UK or Code Club World using the hashtag #MyCodeClub! 

Kick off your code with the Summer of Sport!

Over the next few months, we’re inviting young people across the world to embrace the spirit of the sporting calendar and get coding with some activity-themed projects over the holidays. Find out how your club members can get active with code this summer! 

With the Olympics, Paralympics, Euro 2020, Tour de France, and plenty more sporting events taking place this summer, there’s lots of inspiration to get moving over the coming months. 

We know that sport can be a great way to keep active and have fun, so we’re asking your Code Club members to put on their tracksuits, stand at the start line, and join us for a FUN sport-themed summer!  

The Summer of Sport is open to all young people around the world. So whether you want to share it with your Code Club, your whole school, or with friends and family, make sure you get involved!

On your marks!

We have six Scratch project ideas for your young coders to try at home or as part of your club’s coding sessions. Coders can complete any number of these projects as part of the Summer of Sport. They can also have a go at creating something original with any of the Scratch projects available on our website. 

When their sporty projects are finished, coders can send in their finished creations to our Scratch studio, where they’ll be able to see projects from other participants from around the world! 

Get set!

First, young coders need to choose a sports-themed project. Here is our hand-picked project selection for inspiration. 

Beat the goalie: in this project coders can create a sports league of their own by coding a two-player football (soccer) game and trying to score as many goals as they can in 30 seconds. 

Sprint: in this project young people can test their speed to create their own sprint game, then use the left and right arrow keys to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. 

Scratch Cat goes skiing: take to the slopes with this fun skiing game, in which players need to help Scratch Cat to avoid randomly appearing obstacles to score points.

Synchronised swimming: cool off in the pool with this project. Young people learn how to code a synchronised swimming routine by using loops and creating clones.

Chatbot: we want young people to use a chatbot to tell us about their favourite sport, a sporting event that’s happening this year, or to share their favourite memories of getting active. 

Relax and stretch: it’s important to keep yourself moving, flexible, and alert by doing regular and relaxing exercises, especially when you’re sitting down. Young coders can ‘cool down’ with this project by creating a program to demonstrate some mindful, relaxing exercises.

Go!

Before your young coders get started, there are a few key things to remember: 

  • Creativity is encouraged! We’d love to see how young people can adapt and build on our sporty projects.
  • Don’t forget to tell your young coders to share their finished projects to our Scratch studio, so we can give their projects some love and celebrate what they make!
  • Each young person can download a participation certificate to celebrate taking part. 
  • Share your Summer of Sport projects with us by the end of August!

If you decide to send these activities home, we’ve made a flyer to help parents and guardians support their young people to take part. 

You can also watch our recent livestream, where we coded our Beat the Goalie project, celebrated some of the awesome entries we’ve received so far, and shared more about how you can take part in the Summer of Sport!

Check out Summer of Sport updates and celebrate your projects with us on Twitter and Facebook using the hashtag #MyCodeClub. Got a question? Drop our friendly support team an email on support@codeclub.org