Make Things Move: Your First Scratch Program!

Imagine you are a robot. You can only do exactly what someone tells you, one step at a time. If someone says 'move forward 3 steps, then turn right, then say Hello', you do each action in order. You cannot skip a step or guess what comes next. Computers work the same way — they follow instructions in order, without guessing.

Scratch is a free coding program you can use in a web browser. Instead of typing instructions, you snap colourful pieces together — just like building bricks. Each piece is called a block. A block tells the computer to do one thing, such as 'move 10 steps' or 'play a sound'. The character you control in Scratch is called a sprite. A sprite can be a cat, a spaceship, a dinosaur — anything you choose! You give the sprite a set of blocks, and when you press the green flag, Scratch follows those blocks from top to bottom, one at a time. This ordered list of blocks is your program. Blocks are sorted by colour so they are easy to find: • Blue Motion blocks — make your sprite move or turn. • Purple Looks blocks — make your sprite say something or change costume. • Yellow Events blocks — decide when your program starts (for example, 'When green flag clicked'). The key rule: Scratch always reads your blocks from the top block down to the bottom block, in order. If you put the blocks in the wrong order, the sprite does the wrong thing — just like the robot in the starter would go wrong if you mixed up the steps.