ScratchJr Coding Cards: Creative Coding Activities Cards – July 3, 2018

Great cards for stations or center activities.

The deck includes exercises that are fun and increasingly challenging. They provide just enough instruction but still allow for creative thinking and problem solving practice. Our 7-year-old loves working with these for an hour or so at a time. They were a good activity in the car on a cross country trip.

Got these for my five year old and she loved it. The cards are easy for small hands to hold, the projects on each card are clearly defined and fun to implement

My son has loved looking through the cards and I believe the projects are different than the book.

If you haven't used it before, Scratch is a programming environment for teaching kids. It's a real programming system with loops and conditionals, but it uses visual blocks rather than textual syntax, making it *far* easier for kids to learn. Recently the Scratch team created Scratch Jr, a simpler version for younger kids that runs on tablets like the iPad. One of the problems with Scratch and Scratch Jr is that once you have completed the in-app tutorials you are left to your imagination to come up with new things to build. Some kids need a bit more guidance. That's where No Starch Press' ScratchJr Coding Cards come in.These are actual physical cards, not a longer book, with one program or idea per card. For younger kids it's the perfect way to introduce them to the different concepts and tools inside Scratch Jr. My (then) 6yr old loved them. He was able to build little games and learn conditional logic quite easily.The set comes with 75 cards divided into three groups. The first 40 walk your child through a story about the Scratch kitten, programming everything to guide the character through his day. 20 cards cover different details of the programming interface, and 15 are unplugged screen free creative activities.When I tell parents about Scratch and Scratch Jr, they So what age are they for? That's tricky. It depends *entirely* on the particular child. My 6 loves math and science and reading, but getting him to sit down with the iPad and *not* play a game was a challenge when he was 5 (the recommended minimum age for Scratch Jr). It was only when he was about 6 that he got into it. He then sped through Scratch Jr thanks to the cards and has started to tackle Scratch. I think that some kids can do these card tasks on their own and others need parental encouragement. It depends entirely on your child's own nature.So, are Scratch Jr Coding Cards worth it? Yes!

Nice issue

Cards worked great as a supplement to Scratch Jr itself, working with my son about 15 minutes every other day, he learned the ins and outs of this through the fall and now able to create some pretty interesting programs and stories on his own. I then bought the book but it doesn't really teach you much more than the cards itself and not worth the money if you're looking to buy that. At this point I think he's ready for Scratch itself, looking forward to it!

Got these for my 8 year old who is obsessed with playing Minecraft on his iPad and interested in coding. I started with the Jr. version ahead of the regular Scratch just because some other programs we’ve tried claim they’re for younger kids but end up frustrating him and me who doesn’t code and can’t help.The App, while free, by itself doesn’t give much instruction but with these cards it really shines. My son went through all of them one Saturday morning and by the end was capable and confident of creating his own creations.Highly recommended!