These Sushi Cards are going to help you learn to create computer programs in Scratch. To do this, you’re going to need to have Scratch!

You can either download it and install it on your computer by going to dojo.soy/downloadscratch or use it in your web browser by going to dojo.soy/usescratch. Do one of these two and once you’re set up, move on to the next step.

Once you sign-in to the online Scratch, or load it on your computer, you’ll see a screen like the one below.

This screen has a few parts you’ll need to remember. They are highlighted in the picture below.

• Stage
• Start Program
• Stop Program
• Current Sprite Pannel
• Sprite List
• Code Blocks Pallette

There are a few words from that picture that need explaining:

The Stage

This is where your Scratch Programs run. It has

• One or more backgrounds (images on the background of the screen)
• Any code blocks associated with it (we’ll get to this) Sprites

Any object that goes on the stage is a sprite. In Scratch, the sprite is:

• The image on the stage
• Any alternative costumes (looks) it has
• Any sounds associated with it
• Any code blocks associated with it

The current sprite is the one that's selected in the sprite list.

Code Blocks

Code in Scratch comes as blocks, that you click together to make programs. You choose blocks from the code blocks palette and drag them into the current sprite panel, then click them together. There are 10 categories of blocks, which are colour coded, and you can select each category from the list at the top of the code blocks palette.

Time to get coding! Go back to Scratch and click on the Scratch Cat in the sprite list. The cat is now the current sprite. Go to the Events category in the code blocks palette and choose the “when [flag symbol] clicked” event, then drag it onto the current sprite panel. Then go to Looks in the code blocks palette and choose the “say [Hello!] for [2] secs” block and drag it onto the current sprite panel, connecting it to the end of the other block, like this:

Now click the Start Program button and watch what happens!