😻 Exploring the Scratch Interface

Let’s Create Something!

To get familiar with the Scratch interface, let’s create a simple project.

On the top of the Scratch website, click Create to start a new project.

The Scratch Interface

This is the basic Scratch interface, with key pieces labeled:

• Project Title: This is where you can name your project whatever you want!
• Code Blocks: All the code blocks you can use to program your sprites. Notice the 9 categories of code blocks on the left side of the screen.
• Scene Preview: This is where you can see your code running and sprites moving!
• Sprite List: The list of all sprites in your project. Click each sprite to open the code for them.
• Add a Sprite: Add new sprites from the Scratch sprite gallery
• Add a Backdrop: Add new backdrops from the Scratch backdrop gallery
• Start: Clicking the green flag will start your animation.
• Stop: Clicking the red stop sign will stop your animation.
• Save: Make sure you save frequently to prevent losing any changes you make! The Save now option is found in the File dropdown menu.

Add some code!

First, click the cat sprite (called “Sprite1”) in the Sprite List.

Next, let’s add some code to make the cat move around and talk to us.

Most projects start with a when flag clicked block, so everything happens once we click the green flag. Add one of those by dragging it from the yellow Events section into the big code space.

Now we can tell the cat sprite to do things when we click the green flag.

Let’s have it move forward a bit, say “meow”, and rotate back and forth a little.

In the blue Motion section, you can find the move 10 steps block. Drag that in below the when flag clicked block, and snap them together.

You can test this out by clicking the green flag start button and watching the cat move. Nice!

We can add a few more blocks from the Motion and Looks categories now. Try recreating this:

If you’re looking for a specific block, use the color coding to help find it!

Time to Get Creative!

Once you’re comfortable with the Scratch layout, let’s start our first project Animating Our Names on the next page!