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Sample Lesson Plans

This section is where we will post some of our favorite Vidcode lesson plans, created by our community of teachers. Feel free to share your own lesson plans to help our new teachers, get feedback, or ask advice from our Vidcode experts!

Vidcode already has hundreds of lesson plans that you can access by signing in to your Class Dashboard at vidcode.com. But our community of teachers and curriculum writers are constantly coming up with new lesson plans for existing and Sandbox projects, and helpful resources that can be shared here!

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Lesson Plan: 6th Grade Ancient Civ Vocabulary

Big Idea: Planning and execution make the difference between a memorable meme and a forgettable one.

Module: Make a Meme https://app.vidcode.io/project/graphics

You can go directly to the link, or add students to your classroom at https://www.vidcode.com/ and send them to Start Coding -> Make a Meme

Time: 1 hour

10 minutes background

20 minutes video production

20 minutes coding

10 minutes sharing

Standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.4

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7

Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP6 Attend to precision.

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP7 Look for and make use of structure. CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP8 Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

NGSS Engineering Practice 8 Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

Background (10 mins)

A meme is a tiny idea that people like and share because it is funny, weird, or gross.

Ever think about where the word “meme” comes from? It’s related to “memory.” Memes are things that are easy to remember! And what kinds of things do you work hard to remember? Vocab words! In this lesson, we’ll make our vocabulary words easy to remember by turning them into memes.

Watch this video as inspiration: https://www.flocabulary.com/ancient-egypt/

Video Challenge (20 mins)

In teams, choose a vocabulary word and shoot a short video about it.

Irrigation Polytheism Empire Ziggurat Levee City-State

Use the Flocabulary video as inspiration. You don’t have to be too literal. Be interesting!

Sample ideas:

Shoot a page in your social studies book.

Make some simple paper puppets and move them around with your hands.

Act out the word in character.

Film yourself writing or typing the definition.

Charades!

Code Challenge (20 mins)

Add text and effects to your video to make it really memorable. Animate a special effect that goes with the word. Add some cool music. Make sure you’ve conveyed the word and what it means!

Code reference: https://app.vidcode.io/reference

text(‘I love coding!’, 60, 55); Creates text on your video at position (x,y).

text.color = “green”; Changes the color of your text.

text.size = “50px”; Changes the size of your text.

text.font = “Times”; Changes the font of your text. Possible fonts: “Arial”, “Comic Sans MS”, “cursive”, “serif”, “monospace”

audio(“rock”); Plays music over your video. You can change it to “dance”, “electronic”, “funk”, “rock”, or “retro”!

Sharing (10 mins)

Publish the finished memes, and show them one-by-one on the class projector. Have a face-off: which team did each word better? Vote on the most memorable meme. Turn the videos off and have a pop quiz!

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Lesson Plan: Climate Facts

The goal of this lesson is for students to research and understand a fact about the Earth’s climate, engaging with the work of scientists and artists in response to climate change.

Students should take their research, and plan a 30-second video sharing a fact that they learned. They can use props, art they made, their environment and other actors in their videos.

Big Idea: Coding levels up your presentation skills.

Module: Climate Science & Code https://app.vidcode.io/project/hourofcode-science

You can go directly to the link, or add students to your classroom at https://www.vidcode.com/ and send them to Start Coding -> Cross-curricular coding kit -> Sandbox

Time: 1 hour

25 minutes video production

25 minutes coding

10 minutes reflection

Video Challenge (25 mins)

Before your students start filming, they should plan out what they’re going to be creating. Choose a topic: what fact about climate do they want to share?

Have students create a storyboard or write a short script, and use it as their guide. Or, if they want to adlib, have them write a short summary of their fact or topic.

Think about the story: what will your filming environment look like? How many people will you film? What props will you use?

How will you incorporate effects and graphics into your video during editing?

You can choose to record the actual video through the Vidcode interface, or from a program installed on your students’ computers, such as PhotoBooth.

Go the the Project Page https://app.vidcode.io/project/hourofcode-science. Students can record their videos directly onto the interface or click the background to exit record, and upload their video with the button on the right.

Code Challenge (25 mins)

Once they’re happy with their videos, it’s time to start coding! They should follow the steps on the left of the screen to go learn how to edit their videos with code.

This can be done individually, or in pairs.

Use the docs or Reference page for more information on how to edit videos with JavaScript. https://app.vidcode.io/reference

Reflection (10 mins)

After publishing their videos, students can click ‘View your Video here’ and share the url of the video with their classmates.

Students should talk about what they learned about climate change, and how they used art and code to create their video.

What did they learn? What is JavaScript? What is creative coding? How can they use these things in the future?