Scratch - Free animation and control software!!

I have been having so much fun with this! I was introduced to it at an ICT subject coordinators meeting in Essex and I've just Incorporated it into our ICT planning for year 5.

The website says: Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.
Scratch is available free of charge!

go to: http://scratch.mit.edu/ for the main site

http://scratch.mit.edu/download to download

http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Support for support which includes

video guides, activities for children and a getting started guide.

Here is an example of one of the 10 pdf documents you can download for use with the children. My class are loving it! They can download the program at home and make their own animations to upload to the scratch website. You can also download any animations already on the website that link with current topics that you are studying.