In my computer class for 8 to 11-year-old homeschoolers yesterday, we were working on our animated story using MicroWorlds.  In the story, a tiny person walks up to a giant, says "boo!", and the giant gets frightened and runs away.  Last week we worked on the drawing shapes that make up the animation.  Mostly we were taking shapes that were already there and modifying them.  Joel made a great frowning giant woman who then turned and ran.  Ian's running giant had her mouth wide open.  Kirsten's looked like her eyes were bugging out.  They were great.

So yesterday we knit together the program. We made a procedure (that's a piece of a program) that sets the figures where they will start out.  We had already made a procedure that runs the story.  Yesterday we made a start button and hooked it up. So now we are programmers! We have made a program with four procedures in it, and to run it all you have to do is click start!  I was amazed at how excited the kids were to be putting it all together for the first time like that.  They were hopping out of their seats and running to see what the other guys' programs did.  I told them they were programmers, and got some great big grins.

Phyllis Wheeler