PBS Kids ScratchJr - Scratch With a PBS Twist

PBS Kids ScratchJr is a PBS Kids-themed version of the popular ScratchJr app. PBS Kids ScratchJr is available as a free iPad app and as a free Android app. The app is designed to help five to eight year old students learn basic programming concepts through a drag-and-drop interface.

Just like the ScratchJr app, on PBS Kids ScratchJr students program a story or game by selecting background settings and characters for each frame of the story. Then in each frame students select the actions that they want their characters to take. Students snap programming pieces together to make characters move and talk in their stories and games.

The difference between PBS Kids ScratchJr and the regular ScratchJr app is found in the character and background choices. In the PBS Kids version students can select backgrounds and characters from some of their favorite PBS Kids programs including Nature Cat, World Girl, and Arthur.

Applications for Education
PBS Kids ScratchJr provides a fun platform through which students can learn programming concepts while animating stories based on some of their favorite PBS Kids characters. Visit the PBS Kids ScratchJr landing page to find resources for teachers getting started with the app or planning how to use it in a K-3 classroom.

Exciting New Features Coming to Scratch Later This Year

Thanks to a Tweet from Helen Maddox I found an announcement from the MIT Scratch Team about the new features that will be available in Scratch starting in August. Scratch 3.0 will roll-out as a beta product in August.

Scratch 3.0 will offer some exciting new features including:

• A new extension system for programming physical devices.
• New characters, sounds, and backgrounds.
• Updated editors for characters and sounds.
• Improved support for use on tablets. 

The desktop versions of Scratch will continue to be available and be supported. Any existing projects that you have in the current version of Scratch will continue to exist even after Scratch 3.0 leaves the beta phase. And ScratchJr will still be available for younger students. 

Built to Last - Scratch

This fall will mark the tenth anniversary of Free Technology for Teachers. Over those ten years I have reviewed thousands of free resources for teachers and students. Some of those free resources have come and gone in a blaze of glory (remember when Second Life and Nings were the cat's meow?) while others have stood the test of time. Over the next couple of months I am going to revisit some of the free resources that have endured over the majority of the last ten years. With a nod to the Grateful Dead song of the same name, I'm calling this series Built to Last.

Scratch is the second entry in my Built to Last series. Scratch is a free program designed to introduce students to programming concepts. Through Scratch students can create animations, games, and videos. Students program in Scratch through a process of dragging and dropping blocks into sequences. Each block represents a command.

When I first wrote about scratch almost ten years ago, it had to be downloaded and installed on your computer. Today, you can still do that or you can use Scratch's online version. ScratchJr, a program based on Scratch, is designed for students under the age of eight to learn programming basics on an iPad, an Android tablet, or on a Chromebook.

Plenty of tutorials abound for getting started using Scratch. The best place for teachers to start is on the Scratch for Educators site. There you will find many tutorials, activity guides, and a curriculum guide. The ScratchEd community is the place to go for inspiration from other teachers who are using Scratch in their classrooms. For example, in ScratchEd you might find something like this Google Doc filled with ideas for using Scratch in elementary school mathematics lessons.

Scratch Overview from ScratchEd on Vimeo.


Why did Scratch make it into this series? Because not only has it endured through the years, it has spawned other tools for teaching programming. Google's Blocky, Snap, and many others have been built from the basis of Scratch. Finally, Scratch 3.0 is now available for testing and is scheduled for a full release in 2018 so Scratch is here to stay. 

Introducing Programming to Elementary School Students

Earlier this week a reader emailed me with the following question:

How would you introduce / start coding with a Grade 2 and 3 class? Snap or Scratch?

My suggestion was to start with ScratchJr then move into Scratch. ScratchJr is available to use on iPads, on Android tablets, and on Chromebooks. ScratchJr uses the same drag and drop programming principles used in Scratch. On Scratch Jr students can program multimedia stories and games. Using ScratchJr is a great way for young students to learn the basic programming concepts that will allow them to later take advantage of all of the capabilities of Scratch.


Applications for Education
ScratchJr offers a series of nine progressively more challenging learning activities that you can do with your students. ScratchJr also provides a curriculum for using programming to reinforce literary and math standards.