This is the large rectangle on the right-hand side, and it contains your scripts (computer programs). You drag blocks from the Block Palette into the Scripts Area to build your scripts.
, including the mouse position, the loudness of the sounds picked up by the computers microphone, and even movement picked up by the webcam!
has some really lovely online Scratch tutorials that let kids build cool games using characters from the popular British animated TV series.
Shaun the Sheeps Game Academy teaches kids how to write complete video games using Scratch.
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This so exciting!! Being considered for part-time teaching by a school that specializes in teaching young kids to code and they are using Scratch. They are interested in my possibly coming on-board and helping them to expand there technology training and offerings to their students. Looks like you have lots of helpful information, like Tynker and Kano, that could prove to be invaluable to me in that effort.
Want to know how to help your kid get started with Scratch? Read on to find out!
This sits below the Stage, and it contains the list of sprites (animated images) that youre using in your current project.
When you first open Scratch, the main window contains the following sections:
If your child is interested in learning to code then Scratch is an excellent place to begin.
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is a friendly, approachable book that helps kids learn the basics of Scratch as they create simple video games.
Another good way to learn coding skills is simply toexplore the projectsthat other people have made with Scratch. After youve played with a project, click the See Inside button to open up the project editor and see how it was made. You can even make changes to the project and re-share it on the Scratch website (known as remixing).
Thanks for the articles. Im a grown up with interest in coding and I find this less intimidating to say the least. I will definitely start learning to coding today.
Scratch is awesome, but there are absolutely tons of other tools that kids can use to learn coding skills. Here is a small selection of the best ones:
chunks of computer memory to store and retrieve data.
Once youve mastered the basics of putting together scripts, try working through thesevideo tutorialsto learn some animation techniques, find out how to build simple games, and discover how to create your own graphics.
The main Scratch window contains the Stage, the Sprites Window, the Block Palette, and the Scripts Area.
is an online course that walks kids through the process of creating five simple Scratch games, learning tons of programming techniques as they go.
are a pair of cute programmable robots that are great fun for kids aged 5 and up. They come with a range ofiPad and Android appsfor controlling and programming the robots, includingBlockly, which gives kids a Scratch-like programming environment.
Super Scratch Programming Adventure!
to manipulate data. These include arithmetic operators (plus, minus, multiply, divide), as well as comparison operators (less than, equal to, greater than), logic operators (and, or, not), the concatenation operator (for joining strings together), and trigonometry (sine, cosine, tangent and so on).
: writing code that responds to events, such as key presses and mouse clicks.
I made make programming more fun for my daughter. Do you think text-based languages like JavaScript are too hard for kids to use?
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As your kid plays with Scratch and starts creating simple programs, theyll develop a range of coding and problem-solving skills that will help them when they later move onto real-world programming. These include:
Although it uses a fairly simple programming language, Scratch lets your child create a pretty big range of projects, from computer-generated art and animated cartoons through to quizzes, puzzles and simple arcade games.
is a fantastic kit that lets any child put together a complete, great-looking computer really easily. Once theyve built their own computer, your kid can program it to create all sorts of amazing projects, from simple games like Pong and Snake through to custom Minecraft games and even a wireless server. Great stuff!
Once youve created a Scratch project, you can download it to your computer as a file. You can upload the file again later if you want to continue working on your project.
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, including drawing, animation and sound.
Im teaching coding at my local Boys and Girls Club, but since there may be different kids at the classes, I created 1/2 hour projects. Anyone interested in them?
This section is in the middle of the Scratch window, and it contains all the programming blocks that you can use in your programs. Theyre organised into categories, including Motion, Looks, Sound, and so on.
This is the large white rectangle in the top-left corner where all the animation happens. To start your program running, you click the green flag button.
New to teaching social science in middle school and know this is a tool I need in box. Thank you.
Game Development and Coding for Children
Thats not really the point, though. Unlike traditional programming where it can take days of coding just to get something to move around onscreen Scratch lets you create animated graphics and sound in a few minutes, just by dragging blocks around. This means that kids can see pretty good results almost instantly, which then pushes them forward to develop their coding skills further.
Kano lets kids build their own computer and program it!
: the way that computers move through each step in a program.
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Learn to Program with Scratch: A Visual Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math
There are also tons of great resources available to help your kid learn Scratch. Here are some of the best:
The starter projects on the Scratch website are a great way to get going quickly and learn good coding techniques.
I think theyre fine for older kids, although Id probably go with Python or Swift rather than JavaScript. Its nice that JS is browser-based of course.
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is a fun, free iPad app that is similar to Scratch in many ways, but is more suited to younger kids.Read more about Hopscotch and try a simple tutorial.
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Despite its simple interface, Scratch lets kids create quite complex computer programs and learn many fundamental coding concepts.
Thank you for your comment John Im glad you found the article helpful! Good luck with the teaching. ?
Scratch runs entirely in a web browser, which means you can run it from almost any desktop computer. However, you do need to have the Flash plugin installed. That rules out using Scratch on most tablets, but if you have an iPad then check outScratchJr, a cut-down version of Scratch that runs as an iPad app.
Among other things, Scratch lets kids create simple animations using computer code.
offers a range of online programming courses for kids. Students start by using a Scratch-like interface with draggable blocks, and move onto real-world programming using JavaScript code. Theres also a great, freeiPad and Android appthat helps kids learn to program by solving puzzles and building simple games.
There has never been a better time for kids to learn programming. Starting with Scratch, then moving on to a range of amazing tablet apps and build-it-yourself computer hardware, your child can learn coding in all sorts of fun, exciting ways.
To begin using Scratch, just head over to theScratch website. A good place to start learning is theGetting Started with Scratchtutorial, which teaches you the basics of dragging blocks together to create scripts. You can alsodownloadthis tutorial as a PDF from the Help page (its called the Getting Started Guide).
You might have heard ofScratch. Its a long-running online project that helps kids and teens learn how to code. Scratch is free, it runs in your browser, and it provides a fantastic introduction to the world of computer programming for kids and adults alike.
It must be said from the start that your kid isnt going to create the next Minecraft or Angry Birds using Scratch its simply not powerful enough.
Youre welcome, Marc. Scratch is a great place to start!
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There are also some excellentstarter projectscreated by the Scratch team. These give you good starting points from which to build your animations, games or artwork, and they teach lots of useful coding techniques too.
That said, kids can still learn the fundamental concepts of programming and logical thinking from Scratch. This makes it that much easier for them to graduate to real-world languages later on.
, known in Scratch as custom blocks. (In programming-speak theyre known as procedures or subroutines.)
There are many differences between coding in Scratch and programming in a grown-up language such asCorSwift. Real-world programming is less about dragging and dropping, and more about working with chunks of text. In addition, real-world languages and platforms are a lot more complex to work with than Scratch, since you can do a lot more things with them.
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is another great Scratch book. Its targeted more at older kids and adults, and is a solid guide to more advanced Scratch programming, with tons of great examples.
Scratchis a simple programming environment designed for kids aged 8 to 16. Instead of typing lines of text, as you do with traditional coding, you drag coloured blocks and join them together to build programs.