In unit 3, an overwhelming majority of my students have the idea that the sprite names are the same things as the animation names.
They assume if the sprite’s label is “horse”, then they must name its animation “horse”. In Lesson 16, Bubble 7 (Rainbow Horse, which is super awesome), most of my students created a third sprite called “unicorn” just so they can set its animation to the “unicorn” animation. This was evident in the horse still being behind the new unicorn sprite that appears when the rainbow touches the horse.
Is anyone else’s students having the same problem? How do you get them to disentangle the two concepts?
Right now I’m just explaining to students that sprites and animations are not the same thing. I tell them to think of sprites as objects on the screen and animations as “costumes” the objects can put on. (In that regard, I kinda like how Scratch names everything analogous to a stage/theater.) So a “horse” animation could wear a “horse” costume, but it can just as well put on a “unicorn” costume, so there’s no need to (and we should not) create an additional sprite.