Programming is becoming a more and more important skill to have. Childhood is a great time to start learning programming and to develop computational thinking, creativity, and problem- solving skills. In this course you will learn the basics of programming and how to teach it yourself as a primary or secondary school teacher.

This MOOC teaches programming in Scratch through fun videos which explain programming in an inspiring and clear way.

Every week you build a different Scratch project yourself: a flappy bird game, a virtual pet or a Mondriaan like artwork. Also weekly, new programming blocks are taught and together we’re working on ways to improve your written code. In addition, you will learn how you can integrate the same programming lessons in your class for both primary and secondary education.

Many programming principles covered in Scratch also apply to other programming languages such as JavaScript and Python. An introduction to Python as well as hardware such as robotics and a micro:bit are a part of this online course should you want to broaden your scope.

The content of this course is based on a course that was used in primary schools in The Netherlands with great success. The material follows the educational curriculum for programming in primary education of The Netherlands.

An introduction from scratch how to use makey makey as an extension in scratch

Students follow a tutorial to create a Scratch program that uses stamping, colors, loops, and events to create a compelling visual program.
Students experiment with using Scratch’s system of numbered colors and with using the stamp block to stamp images of the sprite on the stage.
Students experience the need for code to initialize their program when it starts, and they will write code to do that.
By the end of the lesson, students will have created an interactive, colorful program that responds to the mouse pointer.
Scratch’s color effects, stamping, and sprite movement will be important in the final coding project at the end of the unit.

Students follow the instructor’s tutorial to make animal sprites move across the screen in wild patterns. This requires using Scratch’s coordinates system to control the x and y coordinates of the sprites.
Students encounter the coordinate plane background, and try out their knowledge by identifying areas of the screen using only coordinate numbers.
Sprite movement using coordinates will be central to the final coding project at the end of the unit.

Students will explore the various types of loops available in Scratch, by creating musical programs.
The instructor presents a Scratch project with examples of short music loop scripts. Students examine the different types of loops used, and then build their own songs using the same kinds of loops and sounds.
Students reflect on why programmers use loops and the benefits they offer.
Loops— particularly nested loops—will be important in their final coding project at the end of the unit.

This Scratch game is about programming the sprite through the labyrinth. When the sprite touches the colour spots, they need to change colour. When the sprite touches an animal, they need to make the sound. When the sprite touches the words, they need to say the words. Students use while programming in this game only the basic Scratch blocks that are implemented in our unplugged Scratch package.