Scratch is the block-based coding language made by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. You build a program by dragging blocks together instead of typing, so nothing is ever misspelt and nothing crashes — which leaves a child free to think about the idea rather than the punctuation.
Scratch is completely free, and always has been. There is nothing to buy, no subscription, and no paid version with more features. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something MIT gives away.
At this level Scratch stops being a toy and becomes a way to think about program structure — and then a bridge to Python.
Full Scratch, and by the end of this track, text code.
A project with a title screen, a playing state and an end screen, properly separated.
Build it → Project 26 blocksThe top five scores, with names, kept in order and saved with the project.
Build it → Project 36 blocksModel something from your Physics or Biology syllabus — projectile motion, or a population that grows and crashes.
Build it → Project 46 blocksTake a project you have already built and write it again in Python — and see that you already know how to program.
Build it →Star Blocks, this site's own language, runs inside the page with nothing to download — and teaches the same ideas.
Ask GuruAcharya Samayeshwar
