Global Scratch Day in Session!

For about 2 years, Maria has been enjoying Scratch, a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, and today she participated in a very special event celebrating the tenth birthday of the Scratch program, Global Scratch Day. Using Scratch, Maria has been learning to program, or write code, which has given her the opportunity to illustrate, write games, create animations, and engage in an online community of fellow coders. And today she taught Working With Vector Graphics, Advanced Workshop, portrait making.

The Benevolent Order of Makers was proud to be represented by Maria, and to participate in this great event. It's our first Scratch Day event, and it will not be our last!

Not only did we get to spend the day with family and friends, like Bex and Spencer, but we were surrounded by all kinds of enthused and energized people who were eager to learn, eager to teach, eager to share. The exchange of ideas and knowledge is probably one of our favorite incentives for being a benevolent order of makers.

We are so glad to have friends like Ido...

and Leslie... they brought their happy Scratch Day enthusiasm and experiences with them when they moved here from New York. Now we know what a Scratch Day can be, we are already looking forward to next year.


Maria and Simon~

Getting started.

Maria chose to share her knowledge of making portraits, using vector shapes, with more advanced Scratchers. To prepare for the hour long workshop she created different elements that coders could assemble, and make their own. She also wrote key notes and directions on two white boards. Geoff and I were on hand to help... Geoff for technical support, and me to move chairs, and take pictures. Really, she knows Scratch, and managed her lesson plan and preparations all on her own.

Tutu, Aunt Holly, and cousin Iz joined the class, which was a nice bonus.


During the afternoon session Maria decided to be a student and take on Pen... Pen blocks are for controlling the pen tool in Scratch. This class gave Maria new skills and confidence in using functions to create graphic patterns and geometric shapes.

Geoff, Nadav, Maria, and Simon~

Maria is fine tuning her project to share at the end of the day. A great aspect of Scratch is keeping things open, so people can share what they've made, how it was done, and learn from other Scratcher's projects, too.

The day, and the activities, the people we met, all of it raised our thoughts and confirmed our hopes and plans. We love our community, we love the integrity and drive of people who want to teach and learn, grow and share, and we are eager for more... more Make, more Scratch, more sharing, thinking, tinkering, playing, testing, failing, moving forward, creating, and BOoM!