Scratch: Intuitive and Fun Programming for Kids

Easy Coding for Kids with Scratch

Have you tried MIT's Scratch? My kids have been playing around with it lately and enjoying it. They also enjoy playing the games others have shared on the Scratch website. I recently acquired this fun book, that introduces the programming components in a kid-friendly way! Here are the kids playing around with the first program in the book:

What I like about Scratch:

• Intuitive! It is really laid out logically and the visual building blocks make it so simple to just jump right in. How different from the programming languages I first learned.
• Fun! The characters are cute and appealing to my kids. There are lots of simple and fun programs written by others that you can check out.
• Free! You don't even have to run the program locally if you don't want to for some reason. You can just create an account and keep all of your projects there.

I can't wait to find some more books for them when they finish with this one. It looks like there are quite a few out there, as well as books on Python, too. Do you use Scratch in your classroom or homeschool room? Do you use something else like Kodu? I'd love to get your input in the comments below.