My 10 year-old-son son came running out of school today, and very excitedly explained to me he had been learning Scratch at school. He explained on the bus ride home what he had been learning and what he would like to do, so as soon as we got in we loaded up Scratch and started a new program. He did say "but it is not real programming is it?" because we were using Scratch which I explained "no, it is real programming, it is visual programming" and he was happy with that, I think it maybe validated what he was doing, not that it needed it.
He knew how to make a Sprite move around the screen but not how to control it, so I simply took him through controlling the sprite using ifs and sensing blocks. Needless to say he was ecstatic, he knew from that moment on he could make a game. If he could control it, he could give the character a goal.
We also added a key which when you collect it, it dis-appears and re-appears randomly on the screen. We decided that we needed an obstacle so we decided that it needed a timer. So that is what we will do tomorrow, I am really pleased he has taken an interest in programming and really pleased I can be there to help him.
