Misconception: Students often forget to include a FOREVER block around IF blocks in Scratch when programming games.
Show students multiple examples of iteration in Scratch to help them understand and recognize more abstract programming patterns.
Encourage students to make Scratch sprites smaller when making games in order to ease game play and make it more fun.
Encourage students to break up their Scratch scripts into smaller chunks to help them test and debug their code.
Let students solve problems the long, hard, intuitive way first to motivate the use of more advanced Scratch blocks that can help them solve problems in a shorter, faster, more flexible way.
Point out Scratch’s built-in variables before students create their own variables so that students become familiar with variable-related blocks.
Use constructive and well-formed examples, like Quicksort, to teach recursion so that students have a strong model for building their own solutions.
Have students create a reset script and it store in their Scratch backpack so they can use in the future to set the Stage back to a uniform starting point.