SCRATCH DAY: FRIENDSHIP AS A MOTIVATION TO PLAY AND CREATE WITH SCRATCH PROGRAMMING

The "Scratch'ando com o sapo na infancia" ("Childhood with Scratch in motion") project promotes the use of Scratch programming by children from 4 to 6 years old. On 24th May 2011 was organized the Scratch Day event at "Cooperativa de Educacao e Ensino A Torre" in Lisbon (http://day.scratch.mit.edu/event/436), where children could play alone with other children as a result of the knowledge acquired between February and May at the Scratch experiencing and training sessions tutored by the researchers of the project team and the kindergarten teacher. The theme of the Scratch Day at "A Torre" was the friendship, which was discussed through a philosophy for children (PFC) session with four groups of children. This session was followed by the ludic social interaction and the creation of stories in Scratch. The discussion about the bonds of friendship was related to the tutorials' characters of the "Childhood in motion with Scratch" project: Popio, Popia, Sylla, Argus, Biloca, Bicuda and Friends who came from afar, available at http://kids.sapo.pt/scratch/formacao. At the end of the session, children were challenged to use these characters to create narratives in Scratch.