Introduction

What things make a good/bad presentation/animation (on any topic)? 

Give them chance to discuss and collect ideas together as a class:

• Interesting - well thought out and planned
• Correct style for the audience - language, images etc
• Accurate - well researched
• The correct length - not too long or too short
• A mix of media - not too much writing
• Humour - is it appropriate, will it add?
• Interactivity - is it a two way process? Should it be?

Make sure they have considered all of the above as they plan their presentations/story. A planning sheet is available here.

 

To prepare for making their presentation they must plan the content and begin to collect or make the media they might want to use, these might include:

 

Images for Stage backdrops

These can be saved from the web, or created themselves with Scratch’s paint editor. These should also include a title screen for their animation. Click on the Stage box in the bottom right of the screen and go up to the Backdrops tab in the top left. 

 

 

Then use the landscape button in the bottom left to choose or create a backdrop, the options are:

 

 

Any backdrops you have chosen (you can have as many as you like) then show up as thumbnails on the left of the screen. 

 

 

You can then click on any of these to edit them if wanted. The fill tool and Text tools are particularly useful. 

 

 

You can also right-click the thumbnails to duplicate or delete backdrops.

 

Sprites 

Again, these can be images they save from the web or Sprites they design themselves with Scratch or another art package. The options for adding or importing are the same as backdrops and can be accessed from the cat face icon in the bottom right:

 

 

You can use the paint tools to edit any of the sprites, and if you import an photograph as a sprite you can rub-away background or bits you don’t want with the rubber tool or by using the fill tool (if it’s one solid colour) and the diagonal red line icon to fill it as transparent. 

 

 

Music and sound effects 

There are plenty of sounds and music loops in Scratch for you to use in projects. Click on the Sounds tab to see the sound editor (a ‘Meow’ sound will be there if you are using the Scratch cat sprite). From here you can listen to and edit the sound, for example trimming it, speeding it up or slowing it down or adding sound filters. 

 

Like backdrops and sprites you can add or create your own sounds too. Click the blue speaker button for similar options of adding sounds:

 

If your students need a more specific sound or style of music that isn’t available in Scratch there are a few great websites for downloading free, copyright free sounds and music to use in their projects. With all these sites please exercise caution when using and searching with students. We haven’t found anything inappropriate when searching them, but we cannot accept responsibility for any content on these sites. Search them in advance of the lesson and in some cases you may wish to download a selection of tracks from the sites yourself, before the lesson. Save these to your shared area and ask the students to choose from them. 

 

Purple Planet Sounds (music) - www.purple-planet.com

Their free download collection is exactly that, just credit the website with the full URL somewhere in your work as the source of the music. 

 

 

Ben Sounds (music) - www.bensound.com

Their full collection is free to download, just credit the website with the full URL somewhere in your work as the source of the music. 

 

BBC Sound Effects (sound effects!) - https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/

The BBC have made a wonderful and huge collection of their sound effects available for public usage. Just search for keywords and download the clips you want to your computer. Occasionally this site doesn’t load very well on very old computers or out of date web browsers, but if this is the case, other alternatives are available. 

 

 

Find Sounds (sound effects) - www.findsounds.com

Another great collection of free sound effects. Type in keywords in the search box

 

 

Order of events

Finally they should plan what they want to say, the key points they want to cover in their presentation and the order of their scenes - they should be aiming for an animation that is around 1 minute long.

This process will vary in how long it takes, depending on how much they are designing themselves and how much they take from the Scratch library. They can then begin their presentation when they have all the resources and plans in place. 

 

Plenary

Go through a check-list with the students of the elements they have ready for their presentation. Ask some children to share the contents of their plans.

• What is the order of your events?
• What is the first thing you will need to program?
• Think back to the skills you practised in the last two weeks, consider where and when you might use some of these things:
  • Coordinates for moving characters 
  • Speech
  • Broadcasting
  • Showing or hiding sprites

 

Save what they have done so far in their project > File > Save to your computer.