Scratch Coding Course — 5 Online Lessons

Five self-paced lessons that take a child from opening Scratch for the first time to building five complete games. Scratch is free, runs in a browser, and is designed for ages 8 to 16 — so this course needs nothing but a computer and an internet connection.

What's included:

• 5 self-paced lessons in the Sammat Online Academy, with written guides and video walkthroughs
• No hardware — this is a course, not a kit

What your child builds:

• A chase game
• A maze game
• A pong game
• A side-scrolling game
• A platformer

What they practise:

• Breaking a problem into steps a computer can follow
• Loops, conditions and variables, without writing a line of syntax
• Testing and fixing a game that doesn't behave as expected
• Designing something of their own once the five games are done

You will need a computer with internet access to load the Scratch editor. Work through the lessons at your own pace — there is no timetable and no expiry on a lesson you have not finished.