How does a computer know what to do? We have to tell it in a language it can understand. These languages are called programming languages and we will be using one called Scratch. When we look at the Scratch programming environment, we see something like this:
On the right side, you can see a white box with a cat in it. We call this the Stage, and the cat is an Actor (sometimes called a Sprite). Have you ever been in a play? How do the actors know what to do? They read from something called a Script, which tells them what to say and do. Scratch works the same way: we can drag blocks from the left pane into the the middle (where it says "Scripts"), and then when we double-click on the instruction, the Actor will follow it. The different instructions fit together like puzzle pieces to make sets of instructions, like a scene in a play.
Task 1: Can you drag a block into the Script pane and double-click it to make the cat move? Try choosing one of the instructions in the blue Motion tab. How about dragging more than one Motion block and sticking them together? What happens if you change the number in the white box?
If you get stuck or confused at any point, feel free to ask any of the volunteers questions!
When you finish, go to the next page.