Scratch Lesson Plans (Making Pacman)

As the emphasis is strongly on teaching children the art of programming these days, I thought I should dust off my Scratch Programming lessons and bring them back to 5th and 6th grade.

I created a series of lesson plans that gradually built up a Pacman Game, and I have to say it has been way more successful than my previous attempts at creating animated stories.

I will summarise and then give the Learning Objectives followed by lesson plans and examples.

Summary: The game produced will have a maze that two different pacmen will race around to try and eat as much food as possible. The aim of this Two Player Game is for one player to eat more food than the other and this gain more points to become the winner.

Learning Objectives:

LESSON 1

Learning Objectives

I can…create a new stage

I can…create a new background

I can…create two costumes for my sprite

LESSON 2

Learning Objective

I can…give Pacman Controls and movement

Success Criteria

I can…make pacman open and close its mouth automatically

I can…give pacman controls using the arrow keys

LESSON 3

Learning Objective

To make Pacman go back to the start when it touches a wall

Success Criteria

I can…use an IF CONTROL  (IF pacman touches a wall he goes back to the start)

LESSON 4

Lesson Objective

To give pacman something to eat

Success Criteria

I can…add a new sprite which pacman can eat

I can…add a VARIABLE (which will be like pacman’s score for every time he eats)

Extra Objectives

For fast finishers I also encouraged extended learning to include:

• Adding Sound effects when pacman walks, hits a wall or hits a ghost
• Adding a ghost that glides freely around the maze. When in contact with a pacman it sends the pacman back to the start

If you want to look at the Lesson plans with specific instructions, then you can download them here:

Scratch Basics 

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Lesson 4