
Coding is fun, and it’s for everyone.
Kids aged 8 and up gather in the meeting room on the 3rd Thursdays of the month. We get a little silly, and a little noisy. That’s because we’re coding the fun way, using Scratch. What is Scratch? The designers describe it like this:
Scratch is a coding language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others around the world. As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. Scratch is a project of the Scratch Foundation in collaboration with the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. It is available for free at https://scratch.mit.edu
Our club is great for beginners and experts alike. Beginners quickly discover how they can control a project using blocks of code. If they get stuck, it’s easy to ask a friend for some tips. Experts come with their own ideas of video games they want to create, or projects they want to re-mix. And there’s always a monthly challenge set up for kids who want to jump in and solve a problem with code. At the end of the hour, we take time for show-and-tell so that we can check out and complement each other’s hard work.
Coding club is not a class. It’s a time set aside to code with other kids who share an interest in coding. It’s a relaxed hour of playing with creative ideas and making great stuff happen on the screens around us.
SR