Today I was back at Edinaman to teach my first lesson of Scratch! Teaching this program to a large group of 22 students posed a few challenges, but the class went very well. First I explained what Scratch is: a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, and games and teaches important computer programming skills. Next I went over the basic functions within the program, and then we got into our first project! We started off simple by programming our "sprite" (the little character) to draw a square. I explained to them that programming the sprite is no different than telling the person sitting next to you how to walk in a square, step-by-step. I even had two of the students demonstrate this idea, with one student acting as the sprite and the other as the programmer. Drawing the square helped introduce the important concept of repetition. The students quickly realized that the steps to make a square (for example, walk five steps and then turn to the right) repeated four times. I showed them how the same idea can be used in Scratch instead of putting in each step three extra times. The students seemed to catch on very fast, and, as I walked around the room to watch their progress, offer advice, and answer questions, I noticed that many of the students were already exploring other functions and trying to discover what they could be used for. I was so happy to see this demonstration of curiosity about the computer programming because that desire to explore will be EXTREMELY important after I leave. I can only teach these students so much in these short two weeks that I am in Cape Coast/Elmina with them, and that curiosity and exploration is what will enable them to continue to learn from their computers after I leave. At the end of the day, we all walked to a restaurant in town to enjoy fufu, a Ghanaian dish made of cassava and plantain. Even better, we got to watch and help them make the fufu! It involves pounding the cassava and plantains in a wooden mortar with a wooden pestle. It's hard work, but the result is definitely worth it!