Remind students to spend lots of time carefully reading the free-response questions on the AP CS A exam to prepare them for this portion of the exam.
Require that students have paper and pencil on hand when they code to emphasize the importance of planning before writing code.
Have students write a program that constructs an n x n Magic Square in Java so they gain practice working with bounds in 2D arrays.
Have students create a Burrito class in Java to practice object-oriented programming using an object they are familiar with.
Have students write many small, simple classes in Java to scaffold their learning of the basics of object-oriented programming.
To prepare students for the AP CS A exam, make in-class assessments as similar to the final AP exam as possible.