Scratch As a Fun and Educational Programming Tool

Have you ever wanted to make your own video games? Maybe you’ve watched videos of other people making games and thought you’d like to try it too. Scratch is probably the place to start your journey. Scratch is an amazing software development and educational platform that enables children to learn the fundamentals of computer programming. It is a fun and creative web-based portal that allows anyone to become a member and learn to create online.

The Scratch Interface

A view of the scratch Graphical User Interface
The Scratch User Interface

As a parent and computer enthusiast myself I would highly recommend getting your children to begin playing engaging and learning with scratch. The Scratch user interface gives them access to a no-code, low code environment to learn in. There are projects that they can learn from and duplicate.  This work can be shared with other children and portfolio pages can be made as well.

Working with Sprites

This is an example of a Sprite or character in Scratch.
An example of a Sprite

Scratch is the world’s largest computer coding community for children. It has a coding language with a simple visual interface. The interface allows young people (and old) to create digital stories, animations and games. Scratch was developed by the Scratch Foundation and is a non-profit organisation.

Audio Files

An example of an audio file in Scratch
An example of an audio file in Scratch

When it comes to education scratch promotes creative thinking, systematic reasoning, problem solving skills and learning. Self-expression, collaboration and equity in computing are also some of the benefits. The great thing about scratch is that it is a safe and playful learning environment that engages children to learn in a creative way.

Sprite Options

Examples from  the Scratch Sprite Library
Examples from the Scratch Sprite Library

With Scratch it’s easy to make an account and begin creating right away. When you have an account you can explore other projects that have been created by other scratch developers or you can get ideas from the portal and follow video tutorials right away.  My kids and I found out about scratch when we joined CoderDojo an amazing club that helps kids learn about basic computing, learning about code and creating games. The beginning levels are all shown in scratch.

Tutorials

Tutorials are available for everyone
Tutorials are available for everyone

Here are a few examples of the work created by our resident gamer and animator AJToonz.

Lego Crud & Cut the Cheese

We hope you enjoyed this post and as they say in the programming world!

Happy Coding!