Is Initial Coding Free? Yes & Free Classes

You may have heard that Scratch is popular for teaching coding to kids. But at what cost? Is this free? Many online websites and coding languages ​​are complicated for beginners to understand. Scratch is a visual programming language and website designed for coding beginners in elementary and middle school, who should have access to an easy-to-use platform that allows them to practice the essential skills necessary for our growing technological world. Keep reading this article to find the answers to these questions, and enroll your students in a free Scratch class today!

So, Is Initial Coding Free?

Yes, Scratch coding is free and will always be free! Plus, you don’t need a license or even an account to use Scratch at home, in the classroom, or anywhere else. Scratch makes money through grants and donations to maintain the website. Scratch is designed, developed, and maintained by the Scratch Foundation. The Scratch Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to ensure that Scratch is free for everyone so that children around the world can express their ideas through computer programming.

Get Started with Free Scratch Coding

Are you ready to help your students start creating cool projects with Scratch? While you don’t need an account to code, an account is useful for accessing many of Scratch’s features such as sharing projects and saving your work. Follow these steps to start coding with Scratch for free!

1. Go to MIT Scratch website into your web browser.
2. Click Join Early in the top right corner.
3. Create a username. Keep in mind that if you choose to share your project, other people can see your username.
4. Create a password. Make sure your password is unique and hard to guess. We don’t want you to lose your hard work.
5. Click next. Questions will appear asking about your location, date of birth, gender, and email address.
6. Once you’ve created an account, you can start a new project by clicking Create in the top left corner of the Scratch home screen.

If you want a more comprehensive guide to creating a Scratch account, check out our article on how to use Scratch.

Discover Free Features and Capabilities of Scratch Coding

Early coding offers many ways to apply fun and computer science concepts to your child’s life! Scratch is a block-based coding platform that offers a powerful coding experience, while being completely free for all its features. Scratch can help your students:

• Create animated stories full of unique characters and settings.
• Become a game designer and create fun games like Super Mario Bros!
• Debug code while improving critical thinking and problem solving skills.
• Express creativity and imagination with options to customize backgrounds, sprites, and sounds.
• Share creations with other Scratchers in the Scratch community.
• Remix other users’ projects and make them unique!

Free Beginning Coding Classes

Scratch is amazing, and we want to help your students create their first computer programs! Here are some free Scratch Classes you can sign your students up for today. We have classes available for a variety of grades and levels of learning.

1. Free Ninja Scratch Class

In this class, your students will learn the basics of the Scratch interface. They will also be creative and share ideas with other students. At the end of this class, your child will have a finished animation project and the confidence to learn more!

• Prerequisite: There isn’t any
• Mark: 2 – 5

2. Accelerated Scratch Free Class

In this intro class, your students will learn coding concepts and build amazing projects in one hour! This class quickly covers intro topics, so your child will have more time to code and ask questions of our experienced teachers. Our free intro class Accelerated Scratch is sure to increase your students’ interest in coding!

• Prerequisite: There isn’t any
• Mark: 5 – 9

Young Students Can Get Started Too: ScratchJr

Do you have students entering elementary school? Check out our introductory ScratchJr class. In this class, we use ScratchJr, an application designed by the same creator as Scratch. ScratchJr helps students aged 5 to 7 create interactive stories and games. The blocks are simplified for younger students and work better for students who are still mastering reading skills. Even though this class is $15, your students will leave the class knowing how to create animations with ScratchJr code.

Free Beginning Coding Tutorials and Lessons

Are your students ready to create and design more with Scratch? Check out these tutorials and lessons to help your students develop their Scratch skills.

1. Make a Flappy Bird Game

Flappy Bird is a fun and thrilling game, so why not recreate it with Scratch? This tutorial has eight steps and will cover controls, moving objects, and how to add scores to the game. By the end of this lesson, your students will be able to continue adding and customizing their version of Flappy Bird!

2. Make a Maze Game

Do your students like brain challenges? Have them create their own maze game by following this tutorial. Your child will learn about customizing backgrounds, controls, conditional statements, loops, and more!

3. Make a Piano

The Scratch language allows developing amazing and unique projects, such as building a piano! In this tutorial, your students will use controls and sounds to create a simple musical instrument. By the end of this project, your students will have a working piano and can even play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on the code they created!

4. Make a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors

Rock, Paper, Scissors is a classic game, and your students can easily create it in Scratch by following this tutorial! This lesson takes about eight steps to complete and introduces events, variables, loops, conditionals, and more. Once your child completes this tutorial, see if they can create a two-player version of the game that they can use during family game night!

5. Make a Mario Game

Is your child a Super Mario fan? If so, they’ll love this tutorial on designing and building a version of their favorite game! Even though this tutorial is long, your students will have a working Super Mario Bros game and advanced coding knowledge to keep them creating!

6. Making the Ball Bounce at the Start

This is a very simple game that allows you to make the ball bounce off the walls and hit the Nano sprites. If other projects seem too lofty, this could be an easy start to coding with Scratch.

If you have younger students, check out this article on fun ScratchJr Project Ideas.

Now You Know Scratch Coding is Free

Scratch is a phenomenal language for beginner coders to learn, and it’s free! Your child can create many projects with Scratch while having fun and learning the basics of coding. If your kids want to see what else they can make with Scratch, check out our post about fun Scratch projects.

Written by Hunter Wilkinson, an avid reader and learner. She entered the world of education to share her love of storytelling and STEAM teaching. In his free time, Hunter enjoys writing songs/poems, running, playing video games, and hanging out with his two fluffy cats.