There are tons of online resources for learning to code with Scratch, but once in a while it’s nice to use a real book. I recently purchased one of the DK workbooks, Coding in Scratch: Projects, written by Steve Setford and JonWoodcock. This isn’t a very comprehensive book (only 40 pages); but then, it isn’t very expensive either (only $5.69 on Amazon). But this little book packs a lot of information into a colorful, simple-to-understand format.
While it has the look of an introductory book, its 5
projects are fairly sophisticated and jump right into some of the more advanced
concepts like sprite editing, score keeping, random number generation, and
mouse control. For example, the Weird Music project teaches you how to
play musical instruments (a common introductory tutorial). But it takes the
project to a whole different level by showing you how to vary the loudness and
notes based on the distance and direction between the sprite and the
mouse-pointer. That’s a lot of embedded arithmetic operations, but the book’s
colorful graphics make it look easy.
As an educator, the feature I like best about the DK workbooks
are the Show What You Know activity pages at the end of each project. They’re
a great way to reinforce concepts and give kids a chance to reflect on lessons
learned. Overall, I highly recommend this book as a great code-at-home
resource. I just might look into adding the Coding in Scratch: Games
book to my collection.
