Big bands and Halloween hunts

12 October 2021

The digital diary: October 2021

Last month’s return to school saw the start of our term-time online sessions, starting with our 'Sequencing level 1' Prince and Princess project which focuses on the basics of sequencing. We’re delighted to report that a record number of schools joined these virtual coding sessions, adding to the great attendance of our Summer Coding Club. Thanks for taking part, and we look forward to seeing all our budding young coders at future events.

During September, we’ve also been working with the ‘Children in Freedom’ school, based in Nakaru, Kenya. We’re running a number of sessions to help their students explore the exciting world of coding. Check out their Twitter and Facebook to see the amazing activities they’re up to.

 

Let's get coding!

This week we've launched our latest series of online coding sessions of the school year. We’re progressing from Sequencing Level 1, which we covered in September, to Sequencing Level 2 with our ‘Barclays Big Band’ project. In these sessions you’ll learn to code your own musical instruments through the scratch platform. There’s loads of sessions throughout the week to fit around your teaching timetable, take a look and book your place.

Until our next virtual session

October is ORCA’s Whale Education month, and to mark the occasion we’ve created a code-along video version of our ‘Whale escape’ project. You can watch the video at a special Code Playground premiere on Sunday, 24 October at 10:00(BST) on our Facebook page.

Also, Halloween is fast approaching, and with it comes our spook-tacular code-along activity ‘Halloween hunt’. In this project, you'll need your coding skills to help the witch find her lost bat. This is a great introduction to how we use ‘conditional selection’ on the Scratch platform. You can code along at your own pace with this spooky holiday project.

Any questions?

Code Playground is all about offering the support you need. If you have a question, comment or suggestion, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.