First Program — Scratch for ages 5–9
Nine Scratch blocks, three sessions of about twenty-five minutes, and one small program a child of five to nine builds themselves. Written for the parent sitting beside them: what to click, what they will get stuck on, what to say when it goes wrong, and when to keep your hands off the mouse.
- trending_upBeginner
- schedule2h 40m
- menu_book9 lessons
- publicEnglish
- boltFree pool
Briefing
This is the sequence used with a five-year-old who had already outgrown Scratch Jr, taught again with an eight-year-old, and it works because most of it is not teaching. The first twenty minutes are free play. No instructions at all. The child drags blocks and makes nonsense happen, and that is deliberate — a child who has already found out that blocks snap together and make things move does not need to be told what a block is. In the recorded session the five-year-old found the arithmetic blocks on her own, including negative numbers, ahead of anything she had been taught at school. After that, the child builds one thing: a character that jumps when you press the space bar, makes a pop as it goes, and then asks the child their name and greets them by it. Along the way there is one discovery that carries the whole segment, and it is a real one. Put the sound block inside the loop and it fires ten times, a horrible stutter. Put it above the loop and it fires once. Nobody explains this in advance. The child hears the difference, moves one block, and hears it again. Three sessions. The child chooses the character and what it says. Every written page is addressed to you, the adult in the chair, not to the child — they never read a word of it. Your job is to keep it moving, not to steer it, and to stop when they are done rather than when the lesson is.
Course outline · 3 modules
lockUnlocks with access- 01 Let Them Play First3 lessons·52m
You will be tempted to start teaching in minute one. Do not. The free play is the lesson. It builds the one thing a child of this age needs before instruction is any use at all: the knowledge that…
- 02 The Jump, and the Sound in the Wrong Place3 lessons·53m
The jump is built from four blocks and it is genuinely satisfying, so this is the session most children stay with longest. The sound goes in the wrong place first. Do not warn them. Let it stutter,…
- 03 The Sprite That Knows Your Name3 lessons·55m
This is the part children remember, because the computer says their name. Two new blocks, one of which has to be dropped inside a gap in another block, which is fiddly with a mouse and worse with a…
Frequently asked
- What will I learn in First Program — Scratch for ages 5–9?
- Nine Scratch blocks, three sessions of about twenty-five minutes, and one small program a child of five to nine builds themselves. Written for the parent sitting beside them: what to click, what they will get stuck on, what to say when it goes wrong, and when to keep your hands off the mouse.
- Do I need prior experience?
- No — First Program — Scratch for ages 5–9 starts from the fundamentals and is suitable for beginners.
- How long does First Program — Scratch for ages 5–9 take?
- First Program — Scratch for ages 5–9 includes 3 modules and 9 lessons. You learn at your own pace.
- How do I get access?
- First Program — Scratch for ages 5–9 is part of the free pool — create a free account and add it to your collection.
More in Programming
