"My Dream Garden" – an online introduction to Scratch Coding for 8-to 12-year-olds

Are you between 8 and 12? Would you like to try your hand at creating your own animated stories and mini games? Then join Sabine McKenna of creative computing classes Skerries for this free five-week online course! All you need is access to a computer and the internet, plus a parent to help you set up your free Scratch account - and you're good to go. Just don't forget to sign up on cccSkerries.com/Fingal All details will be available there from Mon 1 June, and the five-week course will begin on Sat 13 June.

This free five-week course is offered to you by Fingal Libraries. Each week, starting on Sat 13 June 2020, there will be new videos to set you a challenge and to help you with the coding and graphics. You can follow along at your own pace, whenever it suits.

This course is part of Fingal's events for the 2020 Cruinniú na nÓg, Ireland's creativity initiative for children. The theme is "My Dream Garden" – what does your dream garden look like? What plants are in it? What might happen there?

How it will work

Every Saturday, a new 5-minute video will give you the challenge for the week, as well as some pointers as to how to address it. You will also have access to a few shorter videos that will help you with the challenge, which you can work on in your own time, whenever it suits.

Share your project, and it will be added to the Fingal Libraries Scratch Studio – and maybe showcased in next week's video!

Sabine will also help you during the week. You can contact her at any stage by email and / or online form, and she will come back to you within 24 hours.