Once we reach December, kids just want to do festive activities so why not give them what they want – with plenty of coding and creativity of course! At Flip Computing we’ve put together four free activities from the 24 Days of Scratch Coding advent calendar book. You don’t need to complete the whole book, you can just dive straight into these favourites.

Day 4 – Jump!

Do this for: 

• Animation
• Penguin
• Flipping wings
• Boing

Tracy loved discovering that the penguin’s wings could just be flipped vertically to create a new jumping costume. It’s a Scratch classic with repeat loops and sound effects. 

Day 7 – Hide

Do this for:

• Controlling noise levels
• Using input from the microphone
• Hiding a penguin

This is Liz’s favourite and she loves to watch the little penguin hide out of the corner of eye whilst she is busy working!

Day 18 – Tree lights

Do this for:

• Colour patterns – try the demo options, what do they do?
• Personalisation – get creative and extend with their own patterns and graphic effects
• Maths – there’s some maths in the colour numbers and even in the layout of the lights. But you only need to go there if your learners want to!

Rebecca finds this one very relaxing to watch, it makes her feel very christmassy. 

Bonus activity: Find the stars

Who knew how many stars are hidden in costumes and backdrops in Scratch? This bonus activity has kids hunting through Scratch to find the matching stars. There are answers that you can use to provide clues if time is tight. ‘Witch’ ones did you find the hardest to discover?

Young people love finding things in their environment. For more ideas related to this theme, try the ‘Find it’ section of 101 unplugged activities for your coding or STEM club. 

A showcase

We’d love to see how your makers personalised the projects and the fun they had with them. Share using #24DaysOfScratch.

🌟🐧🎄Seasons greetings from Flip Computing. 🎄🐧🌟