Be stoked this school year! Bring Makey Makey to your classroom.

Sketch it Play it Poetry

 Use Scratch, Makey Makey, and pencil drawings to make your poems interactive!

Pick a poem to visualize

Find an intriguing poem (or write one.)

Create four drawings to visualize poetry

Create four pencil drawings to help us visualize your poem.

Here is an example of a finished poem project.

Important Tips

  • Make your drawings dark and retrace with pencil often!
  • Draw a connection to the edge of your paper so you can easily clip an alligator clip.
  • Don't forget to draw a connection for Earth!

 

Record Audio in Scratch

Record four separate audio samples in Scratch. Here are some of my favorite student projects!

Important Tips

  • Print this "Getting Started with Scratch and Makey Makey" guide if it is helpful!
  • Remember to program each arrow key as a different line (or stanza ) of the poem.
  • You can edit your audio clips in Scratch!
  • Use the handout to get started programming in Scratch.

Program Drawings

Connect your drawings to Makey Makey and program your drawings to "say" your audio samples.

What are you Learning?

  • With each re-read you are reaching a deeper comprehension of the poem.
  • By reading aloud, you are also understanding the way poetry is written and how to perform linebreaks, stanzas, etc.
  • How to create programs for computer keys (Create events with if/then statements)
  • How graphite is conductive (and even loses conductivity over time)

 

Extensions and Other EdTech Poetry Resources

Go Further with Scratch

Go further with Scratch and the writing process by creating a poem generator! Have students write multiple phrases that could accompany drawings and then use the "pick random" block from the operator palette to make their own poetry generator! 

Other Resources

Time Investment
Up to 1 hour
Grades:
3-12+ 

Supplies

  • Makey Makey
  • Paper
  • 6B pencils
  • poetry books

Welcome

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean pharetra, ligula non mollis pretium, lectus libero sodales augue, interdum auctor mauris dui non risus. Nulla facilisi. Nunc rutrum diam in elit sagittis eget viverra erat viverra. Morbi imperdiet aliquet libero vel rhoncus. Integer.