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Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children

scratch.mit.edu

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Re: Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children

#41

Post by khochesh_kushat »

myth_drannon wrote: post #29

I find Scratch so confusing. So many menu options, drop downs , select here click here. Very frustrating experience. I don't think my child (8 years old) learns coding from it. I'm trying to find away to introduce him to Basic. But he looses interest once he sees just lines. Scratch is flashy and things can be moved and clicked which is what the kids are used now, but I just don't see any educational or fun value add…

My 7 year old watched it and it clicked quickly, but we also watched a couple example videos on their official YouTube channel. Maybe give that a try. Once it clicked we were able to make some cool stuff together, and she was able to add features on her own.

Re: Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children

#43

Post by snowwrestler »

balls187 wrote: post #3

Scratch is also one of the largest places for kids to play games.

This is true—and watch animated stories.

But the cool thing is that for any game or story on Scratch, the kid can click into the project to see how it was made, and even access the code and assets. They can copy, fork, alter, build.

The technology is different obviously, but it feels like the early days of the Web, when you could “view source” and “save as” to easily explore and learn how any web page was put together.

Re: Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children

#45

Post by teucris »

cyrialize wrote: post #39
photochemsyn wrote: post #30

I'd imagine learning at least a little Python alongside Scratch would be more optimal than Scratch alone. It's like bilingual education, it has great benefits although individuals may gravitate towards a preferred option. Perhaps it's a bit like comparing Minecraft to Factorio: https://www.idtech.com/blog/scratch-vs-python Looking around, it also seems possible to set up your own Scratch server, which is comparable t…

Other platforms similar to Scratch actually teach Python! They start off with drag and drop coding and then Python. The Python is actually pretty fun, you write code to make animals move around and get stars.

Which platforms are you referring to?

Re: Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children

#47

Post by ocfnash »

I mentioned this in a reply to a comment below but I think it is worth repeating at top level: there is a great app called Pytch which is a bridge between Scratch and Python (and runs in a web browser).

I always recommend it to anyone teaching young kids to program.

You can find it here: https://www.pytch.org/app/

Re: Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children

#49

Post by giovannibonetti »

teucris wrote: post #45
cyrialize wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other platforms similar to Scratch actually teach Python! They start off with drag and drop coding and then Python. The Python is actually pretty fun, you write code to make animals move around and get stars.

Which platforms are you referring to?

Not OP, but CodeWars is a platform I heard about that fits the description

Re: Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children

#50

Post by yalogin »

Folks here who used scratch with their kids, what is the next step after scratch? How did you introduce a language/platform to your kid? I have introduced python and my kid is able to pick it up, but am unable to come up with projects that sustain interest. It feels dry without UI and one shouldn't be doing web dev with python too. So what is the progression for python and kids?
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