✅ What you'll learn
- Scratch was first released in 2007 and has undergone major updates to Scratch 3.0 (2019) and ongoing improvements since.
- The platform is completely free and has no advertising — funded by MIT and donations.
- Scratch's extension system allows connection to external APIs and tools, including AI and machine learning services.
- Google's Teachable Machine integration with Scratch is one of the most popular AI education activities in schools globally.
💡 Perfect if you're thinking...
Scratch is a free, visual coding platform made by MIT for children aged 6 and up. You create programs by dragging and snapping colourful blocks together. Scratch now includes AI-powered extensions — like face detection, body tracking, and teachable machine integration — that let children build projects using real machine learning, without writing a single line of text code.
What Most Parents (and Kids) Think About This
Most parents have heard of Scratch, and many children have used it in school. What fewer people know is that Scratch has grown significantly beyond simple animations — it now supports AI and machine learning features that let children build genuinely sophisticated projects.
Some parents think Scratch is only for very young children, or that children quickly "outgrow" it. In reality, Scratch is used by students up to age 16 and beyond for increasingly complex projects. The block-based interface scales with ambition.
What This Question Really Means for Your Family
Scratch is likely your child's first or most accessible coding platform. Understanding its AI capabilities means you can guide your child toward some of the most exciting and educational projects available — ones that introduce real AI concepts in an age-appropriate way.
From the field: Sawan Kumar, who trains professionals on AI adoption through his Dubai-based agency EvolvXAI, observes: "Organisations that succeed with AI start with education, not tools. Understanding what AI genuinely can and cannot do is the difference between a successful implementation and a wasted budget."
The Real Answer — Explained Simply
What is Scratch?
Scratch (scratch.mit.edu) was created by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT Media Lab, led by Professor Mitchel Resnick. It is completely free, requires no installation (runs in a browser), and has no advertising. As of June 2026, it has over 100 million registered users.
In Scratch, you:
- Create animated characters called sprites
- Write programs by dragging coloured blocks that represent instructions
- Build projects — games, animations, interactive stories, music, art
- Share your projects with the Scratch community
- Remix other people's projects (with credit)
How does Scratch use AI?
Scratch's AI capabilities come through two main routes:
1. Official Scratch Extensions (built-in):
Video Sensing — Uses your computer's camera to detect motion. Children build projects where sprites react to real-world movement — wave your hand to control a game character.
Text to Speech — AI-generated voices speak any text your program includes. Children can build talking characters, interactive stories that speak aloud, or simple voice interfaces.
Translate — Uses AI translation to translate text between languages in real time within a Scratch project.
2. Google's Teachable Machine + Scratch:
This is where it gets really exciting. Teachable Machine (teachablemachine.withgoogle.com) is a free Google tool that lets anyone train a simple machine learning model with no code:
- Train the model: show your webcam examples of different things (thumbs up, thumbs down; smiling face, neutral face; cat picture, dog picture).
- Teachable Machine learns to recognise the difference.
- Export the model and connect it to Scratch using the "ML2Scratch" or "Stretch3" extensions.
- Now your Scratch project responds to what the camera sees — detected with your own trained AI model!
Children have used this to build:
- A game controlled by hand gestures
- A sprite that reacts differently to happy vs. sad facial expressions
- A sorting game that uses image recognition
- A music instrument controlled by body movement
3. ml5.js and p5.js (for more advanced Scratch-adjacent projects):
For older children moving beyond Scratch, ml5.js is a JavaScript library that wraps TensorFlow.js in beginner-friendly language. It works with the p5.js creative coding environment and brings AI capabilities to web-based projects.
What children learn from Scratch + AI:
- Training data matters — more examples improve model accuracy
- AI makes mistakes — and why
- How machine learning "sees" and classifies things
- That AI is a tool they can use and build with, not a mysterious black box
- Computational creativity — using technology as a creative medium
Step-by-Step: Build Your First Scratch AI Project
- Go to teachablemachine.withgoogle.com.
- Click "Get Started" and choose "Image Project."
- Create two classes: name them "Thumbs Up" and "Thumbs Down."
- Click "Webcam" under each class and hold up each gesture while clicking "Hold to Record." Capture about 50 samples each.
- Click "Train Model" and wait 30 seconds.
- Test it — hold up each gesture and watch the model predict.
- Click "Export Model" and choose "Upload (shareable link)."
- Go to ml2scratch.glitch.me (a Scratch extension tool) and load your model.
- In Scratch, connect to the extension and build a simple game where the cat sprite moves left or right based on your gesture.
- You have just built an AI-controlled game!
Facts You Should Know (Updated June 2026)
- Scratch was first released in 2007 and has undergone major updates to Scratch 3.0 (2019) and ongoing improvements since.
- The platform is completely free and has no advertising — funded by MIT and donations.
- Scratch's extension system allows connection to external APIs and tools, including AI and machine learning services.
- Google's Teachable Machine integration with Scratch is one of the most popular AI education activities in schools globally.
- Children aged 10+ have used Scratch + Teachable Machine to build impressive AI projects that are submitted to science fairs and competitions.
- Scratch projects are public by default — parents of younger children should review privacy settings.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Scratch free?
Yes, completely free. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no advertising. scratch.mit.edu.
What age is Scratch designed for?
Scratch is designed for ages 8–16 as the primary audience, though younger children (6–7) can engage with parental guidance, and older teens continue to use it for complex projects. The platform scales with skill.
My child uses Scratch at school. How can they use it for AI at home?
Start with the built-in Text to Speech and Video Sensing extensions — both accessible in Scratch's extension library (the puzzle piece icon in the block palette). For a bigger AI experience, try the Teachable Machine integration described above. No extra accounts needed beyond a free Scratch login.
The Bottom Line
Scratch is MIT's free visual coding platform for children, with built-in AI features including motion sensing, text-to-speech, and translation. Combined with Google's Teachable Machine, children can train their own machine learning models and use them in Scratch projects — experiencing real AI concepts in a hands-on, creative way. It is one of the best AI education activities available for children aged 8–14.
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