ScratchJr Coding Cards

Book excerpt: The ScratchJr Coding Cards are a deck of 75 activity cards covering fun and exciting projects designed to educate young children with the visual programming language, ScratchJr. ScratchJr is a free, introductory computer programming language that runs on iPads, Android tablets, Amazon tablets, and Chromebooks. Derived from Scratch, the wildly popular programming language used by millions of kids worldwide, ScratchJr helps even younger children (5 to 7 years old) create their own playful animations, interactive stories, and dynamic games. The ScratchJr Coding Cards encourage kids to think creatively and systematically while developing computational thinking skills. Kids will learn powerful ideas about computer science by using ScratchJr programming blocks to make characters move, jump, dance, sing, and more. As they work through the deck, they will become creative thinkers and problem solvers. Written by the ScratchJr co-creator, Prof. Marina Umaschi Bers, and Dr. Amanda Sullivan, the exercises in ScratchJr Coding Cards will encourage kids to develop coding skills as well as foundational concepts for literacy, math, planning, and problem-solving, all while having fun. The cards are created using the pedagogical approach developed by Prof. Bers to teach coding in a playful way to young children.