Part of my core belief about this project, which this is really a test of, is that by teaching The Monster computer programming, I'm also teaching a variety of other lessons in a pragmatic way. So periodically I'm going to review these and see how that part of the project is coming...
1) Combined Words. "Pixel" is "Picture Element". This is very useful to explaining what a pixel is and how it is useful... but it's also a reality of language (especially the English language). We've reviewed this many times, as I insist that she give me this two-word definition of "Pixel." This evening, she asked me what the pieces of "request" mean. Coincidence? Maybe.
2) Cartesian Coordinates (X and Y values for position). This one is going to take more review, but at the end of the day it is too crucial to our project to believe that she won't grok it sooner or later. Particularly interesting is that Scratch places 0,0 at the center of the screen, not the lower left. This has a lot of implications for #3, Negative Numbers.
3) Negative Numbers. The Monster has not been taught this in school yet, so this is tricky. She understands subtraction, but not negative numbers. However since the middle of Scratch's world is 0,0 there's no getting around a constant flood of negative numbers. We've mostly danced around this thus far, but it's going to continue to recur.
4) Multiplication vs. Addition. Multiplication and addition have a funny relationship, really. By looking at the difference between a nested loop (which creates a multiplication) and consecutive loops (which are addition), this difference is given a new perspective.
5) Measurement of a Circle in Degrees. While The Monster was familiar with the terms "a 180" and "a 360," she was not familiar with their mathematical/geometric underpinnings. In order to get her Pear to rotate in a predictable way, she had to get a crash course in circle geometry. This also involved division and multiplication (using a hand calculator of course) to sort out increments of rotation.
I'm not counting stuff like variables yet... I was getting ahead of myself when we did these. But that's not a bad list for three lessons.
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