Before

Decide when and how long
The Hour of Code is a one-hour, hands-on introduction to computer science. It is part of Computer Science Education Week, which is taking place December 8th to 14th. But your Hour of Code can happen before, during, or after CSEd Week -- and you can easily tailor the activity to fit any time frame.

Check computing resources
Make sure there is an Internet-accessible computer for each student or pair of students in your class. If you do not have a reliable or easily accessible Internet connection, you can download Scratch and install it on each computer before the session. Scratch is free!

Look at examples
See what's possible by exploring the Hour of Code holiday card studio at http://scratch.mit.edu/studios/279432/

Try it yourself
As a teacher, you do not need to have prior programming experience to facilitate this activity. But we recommend trying out the activity, which is available at http://scratch.mit.edu/hoc

Prepare a handout
Some learners might prefer to have a compact version of the tutorial. Download and print the one-page version of the step-by-step tutorial to share with students.

Ask questions
Use the ScratchEd discussion forums to get answers to your specific questions and to learn about other teachers' experiences with Scratch and the activity in the classroom.

Get permission
If you'd like students to save and share their work online, students will need to sign up for a Scratch online community account. In some settings, you may want to seek permission from parents.

During

Show what's possible
If you have a projector, share the holiday card activity video and show examples of holiday cards from the studio.

Share the tutorial
The holiday card tutorial is intended to be mostly self-guided, with the steps presented as a series of short videos and accompanying text. Encourage students, in pairs or individually, to go through the tutorial at http://scratch.mit.edu/hoc. Creative diversity is important -- so encourage students to customize their cards by adding different images, sounds, and code.

Provide additional resources (as needed)
Help students go further with their card customization by making other resources available. Suggest that students:

• * investigate the Scratch forums at http://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/
• * search for help using Google (or other search engine), by submitting questions like "how to add a sprite in Scratch" or "how to make a list in Scratch"
• * explore the Scratch wiki at http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu

Support sharing
While the activity can be completed without a Scratch online community account, students won't be able to save and share their work without an account. Help students create a Scratch account. If students don't have their own email addresses, you can provide your email address when signing up for an account.

Extend the activity
Depending on how much time you have for the activity, encourage students to explore others' projects and provide constructive feedback on others' work. Students can also look inside projects to study how projects were made and to remix projects.