Coding
Scratch
MIT's drag and drop language where kids build games, stories, and lifelong obsessions.
- Grade bands
- 3-5 · 6-8
- Price model
- Free
- Platforms
- Web · Windows · Mac
- Subject
- Coding
What it is
The most important piece of educational software of its generation. Scratch's snap together blocks remove syntax as a barrier while leaving real computational thinking fully intact: loops, conditionals, variables, events, and the joy of shipping something your friends can play.
Notable features
- Blocks to logic
- Massive community
- Teacher studios
A way to use it
Teach remixing explicitly: find a project, change one thing, understand why it changed. That is real code reading.
Privacy and accounts
MIT nonprofit; teacher accounts can manage student studios.
A listing is a starting point, not a district approval. Check your own district's privacy and procurement rules before classroom use. Nobody pays to be listed here, and this link earns no commission.
Other Coding apps
- Code.org Full CS pathways from unplugged kindergarten lessons to AP, with the H
- Swift Playground Learn real Swift on an iPad and end at an actual app, not a metaphor f
- CodeHS A complete 6-12 CS program with an in browser IDE and tooling teachers
- Minecraft Education The blocks they already love, rebuilt for chemistry, history, coding,