Kids don’t want to code unless they enjoy it. You can’t force them to sit in chairs and write lines of code in a half dozen languages. Technology and computers are practical tools, definitely, but they’re also lots of fun. Your kid should find coding entertaining, and the free online coding platform called Scratch from MIT certainly fits the bill.  DevelopIntelligence.com gathers some of the benefits of this great new tool.

Children between 8 and 16 are the targeted audience members of Scratch, which is an online group of mostly kids. They discuss concepts and ideas about Scratch, which is also a programming language. There are free tutorials available to students of all ages who want to learn how to snap together blocks to create various projects. Members can share what they’ve created and build on others’ creations. Adults find the site fun, too.

Scratch has become a really popular site over the years, and how many users and projects it has gained over the years reflects how popular coding is becoming. By late January 2015, the site had over 5 million registered users. Approximately 700,000 studios were made, and more than 7.8 million projects were shared between uses. Even more astonishing is that nearly 38.8 million comments were posted. Some users were as young as four years old. As of late January 2015, almost 11,000 users were four. Twelve year-old new users were the largest group of incoming Scratchers at 542,000.

The Scratch community is free, and it is growing in popularity. Maintained and moderated by MIT, the Scratch website also offers tutorials without cost. New coders share ideas and gain critical thinking skills as they use Scratch. They also thoroughly enjoy their time coding.

Sign your kids up on Scratch if they need something new to do. They can discover how to code at their own pace and then start creating their own projects. They will develop their analytical and logical thinking skills, design new creations, build relationships, and just have fun. Your child will want to persist through problems she encounters in her coding, and she will learn how to collaborate to solve those problems. These are all 21^st century job skills she will need, whether she becomes a coder or not.