Meet the stage and your first sprite

Welcome, coder!

In this course you will make games and animations with Scratch, a free coding tool made for young people. In Scratch you build programs by snapping together coloured blocks, like building with toy bricks. You will learn the same big ideas real programmers use, and by the end you will make your own game!

Opening Scratch

Your teacher will open Scratch for you, either on the Scratch website with a class account or in the Scratch app. Do not make your own account without a grown up.

The Scratch screen

• The stage: the big white area on the right. This is where your game or animation happens.
• Sprites: the characters and objects on the stage. The orange cat is the first sprite.
• The sprite area: below the stage. It shows all your sprites. Click one to choose it.
• The block palette: on the left, with blocks sorted into colours, like Motion (blue), Looks (purple) and Events (yellow).
• The code area: the big space in the middle. Drag blocks here to build your program.
• The green flag: starts your program.
• The red stop sign: stops it.

Your first program

1. Click Events (yellow). Drag the block when green flag clicked into the code area.
2. Click Motion (blue). Drag move 10 steps and snap it under the first block. It clicks into place like a puzzle.
3. Click the green flag. The cat moves!
4. Change 10 to 50 and click the green flag again. What happens?

Talking cat

Click Looks (purple) and snap say Hello! for 2 seconds under your move block. Click the green flag. The cat moves, then speaks!

Adding a new sprite

Point at the cat face button at the bottom right of the sprite area and choose Choose a Sprite. Pick any character. Now you have two sprites! Each sprite has its own code.

Changing the backdrop

At the far bottom right, choose Choose a Backdrop and pick a place, like a beach or space.

Saving

Your teacher will show you how to save: File, Save now on the website, or File, Save to your computer in the app. Give your project a good name, like My first program.

For grown ups

Scratch is free and made by MIT for children. For children under 13, please set up any account yourself, or use the offline app. Projects can be kept private.

What you learned

You know the parts of Scratch, how to snap blocks together, and how to make a sprite move and talk when the green flag is clicked. You are a coder!