Guess the Number! Implementation of the Game in Scratch: A Case Study for the Sixth Grade of Elementary Schools

Pavlos D. Vasileiadis

(Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)

Abstract: The teaching of Informatics in the 5th and 6th grades, in the section “Controlling and Programming” of the curriculum, usually includes the student’s understanding “that the computer executes instructions received from man in a coded form” and the use of simple commands “to create shapes or the solution of simple problems. Scratch’s easy-to-use and playful programming environment allows students to move from the world of educational games to Scratch programming through a fairly smooth process. Fundamental concepts such as variables and basic programming structures appear in the students’ cognitive horizon and are acquired to a satisfactory degree in terms of their age and existing experiences, mainly through the desire for exploration. Thus, the Informatics course attracts students’ interest in discovery and participation and makes the teaching of basic programming concepts easier and more friendly to them. The implementation of the game by 6th grade students had very satisfactory results.

Key words: scratch, programming, variables, structured programming