Who it is forFor the grades in the title. Your child needs to read simple words on a screen and use a mouse or trackpad. Typing barely matters, since Scratch works by dragging blocks. No coding experience is needed. If your child has already built several Scratch projects on their own, say so when you request the class and the teacher will set them a harder build.What your child will actually doMake a character move and speak by snapping code blocks together. Build a short animated story where two characters take turns. Use a loop so something repeats without copying the same blocks again. Make a simple game where pressing a key changes what happens on screen. Find out why a project does something unexpected, and fix it.What they will be able to do by the endPut instructions in the order a computer needs them. Use a loop and explain why it saves work. Use an if-then block to make a project respond to a key press. Find and fix a bug in their own project. Walk someone else through what their project does, block by block.The shape of the session55 minutes, once a week, for eight meetings. No more than four children. Each session opens with one new idea shown on screen, gives most of the hour to the child's own project, and closes with each child showing what they built and one bug they fixed.What you need to sendJust the everyday basics. Supplies are included this fall. Please send a laptop with your child if you have one. If you don't, that's okay. No homework. Scratch can also be used at home if your child wants to keep building, and that is optional.What comes homeTheir planning sheets, where they sketch a project and its steps before they build it. The projects themselves live on screen, so the paper record shows their thinking more than their finished work.How this fits your Virginia requirementsHexagon Academy does not issue grades, credits, transcripts or a diploma. Anything your child brings home from this class is yours to keep. Taking this class does not change what you file with your school division or when you file it. If you home instruct under Virginia's home instruction law, the notice of intent and any evidence of progress stay yours to file, on the dates that law sets.What this class is notIt is not a robotics class, and there is no hardware. It does not teach a typed programming language, which starts in Coding & Robotics (Python): Grades 6-8. It is not screen time for its own sake, since every session has a build goal. It is not graded.