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Scratch Online for Kids in Malaysia: How to Open It, Download It and Start a First Project

Published: 21.10.2026·Updated: 21.10.2026

Hafiz Rahman

Coding Curriculum Team, Algonova Malaysia

Scratch Online for Kids in Malaysia: How to Open It, Download It and Start a First Project

Scratch online is free: go to scratch.mit.edu, press Create, and your child can start building in the browser without an account. For offline use, download the free Scratch app for Windows 10 or later, macOS 10.13 or later, Chromebooks or Android 6.0 tablets. Scratch is made for ages 8 to 16, and most Malaysian children first meet it in RBT in Year 4.

How do you open Scratch online or download it?

You can use Scratch in two ways: in the browser at scratch.mit.edu, or as the free Scratch app that works without internet. Both run Scratch 3, the version released in January 2019, so projects look and behave the same.

	Scratch online	Scratch app (offline)
Where to get it	scratch.mit.edu, button Create	scratch.mit.edu/download, Microsoft Store, Mac App Store or Google Play
Works on	Most browsers on laptops, Chromebooks and tablets	Windows 10+, macOS 10.13+, ChromeOS, Android 6.0+ tablets
Needs internet	Yes	No, after install
Where projects are saved	Your Scratch account, or an SB3 file on your computer	Inside the app or as a file
Sharing with the community	Yes, with an account	Upload the file to the website first

To open Scratch online for the first time:

Type scratch.mit.edu into the browser. Avoid look-alike sites in search results.
Press Create at the top of the page. The editor opens with an orange cat on the stage.
Drag one block in and press the green flag to check that it works.
Before closing, use File, then Save to your computer, if you have no account yet.

Take the offline app only from the official download page or from your device's app store, where the developer is listed as the Scratch Foundation. Android phones are not supported, and there is no iPad app, so on an iPad your child uses the browser version.

What age is Scratch for?

Scratch is designed for children and teens aged 8 to 16, according to the Scratch page for parents. For ages 5 to 7 the simpler tablet app is a better fit, as our ScratchJr guide for ages 5 to 7 explains.

Scratch comes from the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, led by Mitchel Resnick, and went public in 2007. Today the nonprofit Scratch Foundation runs it. In 2024 the platform passed its one billionth project created.

A child is ready for Scratch when they read short English instructions alone and can drag with a mouse. If you want a plain explanation of how the blocks work before you start, read what Scratch is.

A child who can explain why the cat stopped moving has already started to think like a programmer.

Does your child need a Scratch account?

No account is needed to make projects. Your child needs one only to save work online and to share it. Without one, your child saves each project to the computer as an SB3 file and opens it later through File, then Load from your computer.

When a child under 16 signs up, Scratch asks for a parent's email. Depending on local privacy rules, the child either waits for your permission or can make and save projects but cannot share or comment until you confirm by email.

Set up the first account together:

Pick a username without the child's real name, school or age.
Use your own email, so confirmations and alerts come to you.
Write the password down in one place at home.

Is Scratch safe for kids?

Scratch is one of the safer places for a child to build online, because the nonprofit Scratch Foundation moderates it. The Scratch Team reviews reports every day and uses a profanity filter, and its privacy policy says account information is not sold or rented to anyone.

The risks are the usual ones for any community: comments from strangers and projects that copy content your child should not see. Five habits keep it calm:

Read the Community Guidelines with your child on day one.
Share no photos, school names or locations in projects.
Show your child the Report button.
Keep the laptop in a shared room, not the bedroom.
Use the offline app if your child is 8 and you want no community at all yet.

Building in Scratch is active screen time, but it still counts toward the daily total. Our guide to screen time limits by age in Malaysia helps you plan the week.

Which device works best for Scratch at home?

A laptop or desktop with a mouse works best, because the editor needs space for blocks, stage and sprites at the same time. A Chromebook also works well. Tablets are fine for short sessions, and phones are not a good choice.

Device	Works?	Tip
Windows laptop or PC	Yes, online or app	Windows 10 or later for the app
MacBook	Yes, online or app	macOS 10.13 or later
Chromebook	Yes	App from Google Play, or the browser
Android tablet	Yes	Android 6.0 or later, tablets only
iPad	Browser only	No official iPad app
Phone	Not recommended	Screen is too small, the Android app does not install on phones

Take Wei Jie, aged 9, from Ipoh. He started on his mum's phone, gave up after ten minutes and moved to the family laptop with a cheap mouse. The same project took 20 minutes and he finished it.

3 first Scratch projects for a weekend

Good first Scratch projects finish in one sitting. The three below take 15 to 30 minutes each, and each one adds a new idea.

#	Project	Blocks to use	Time	What your child practises
1	The cat introduces itself in English and BM	When flag clicked, say, wait, play sound	15 min	Putting steps in order
2	Catch the falling rambutan	Forever, go to random position, if touching, score variable	30 min	Loops, conditions, keeping score
3	A sifir quiz for a younger sibling	Ask and wait, answer, if then else	25 min	Input and decisions

In project 2, the rambutan falls from the top, a basket follows the mouse, and the score goes up by 1 each time the basket touches the fruit. Your child changes one number, such as the falling speed, and tests again. Most of early coding is exactly this: try a number, run it, look again.

Project 3 ties coding to maths homework: the program asks "7 x 8?" and replies "Betul!" or "Cuba lagi". When your child is ready for a full game with levels, follow our step-by-step guide to make your first Scratch game.

How does Scratch connect to RBT and Asas Sains Komputer?

Scratch is the tool Malaysian schools use to introduce programming. Reka Bentuk dan Teknologi (RBT) is a compulsory subject in Years 4 to 6 under KSSR (Semakan 2017), first taught to Year 4 pupils in 2020. In Year 4, pupils use Scratch to move characters, add dialogue and sound, and switch backdrops.

Year 5 moves the same logic onto a microcontroller, and Year 6 adds simple robotics. In secondary school, Asas Sains Komputer starts in Form 1 under KSSM, introduced in 2017, and Form 1 textbooks include a chapter on Scratch coding. Our guide to RBT Year 4 to 6 programming lists the topics for each year, and coding and STEM under KSSR shows the bigger picture.

The Scratch editor is translated into many languages, including Bahasa Indonesia and Chinese, but Bahasa Melayu is not on its language list. Children in SK schools usually work with the English interface, which is one more reason the projects above mix English and BM.

When should your child move from Scratch at home to lessons?

Move to lessons when your child keeps starting projects but stops finishing them, copies tutorials without understanding them, or asks questions you cannot answer, such as how variables or clones work.

Algonova's Visual Programming course for ages 8 to 11 is built on Scratch: 36 live online lessons with a certified teacher, in a group of up to 10, a mini group of 2 to 4, or one to one. Lessons start from RM 48, and the first 60-minute class is free. Algonova has taught more than 1 million students in 97 countries.

Age	Next step	What it builds
8 to 11	Visual Programming with Scratch	Games and animations, first coding logic
10 to 12	Game Design with Roblox Studio and Lua	Typed code, real game development
12 to 17	Python Year I and Year II	A text language for school and beyond

See the full course line-up for coding for kids aged 8 to 12 or browse all online coding classes for kids. If your child has already mastered Scratch, read what to learn after Scratch or compare Scratch vs Python.

Summary

Scratch online is free at scratch.mit.edu: press Create, and your child can start without an account.
The free offline app runs on Windows 10+, macOS 10.13+, Chromebooks and Android 6.0+ tablets, but not on phones or as an iPad app.
Scratch is made for ages 8 to 16. For 5 to 7, start with ScratchJr.
Set up the account with your email, a username without the real name, and read the guidelines together.
In Malaysia, Scratch appears in RBT Year 4. A live class helps once your child stops finishing projects alone.

FAQ

Is Scratch free to use?

Yes, Scratch is completely free, both online at scratch.mit.edu and as the downloadable app, with no paid version or subscription. It is run by the Scratch Foundation, a nonprofit organisation. There is nothing to unlock later. Every block, sprite, sound and extension is available from the first day, and you can create an account for free. Be careful with websites and apps that use the Scratch name and ask for payment, because these are not official. The safe sources are scratch.mit.edu, the official download page and the Microsoft Store, Mac App Store or Google Play listings from the Scratch Foundation. For example, a family in Johor Bahru can install it on an old school laptop and pay nothing at all. The only cost you might choose is lessons. At Algonova, a live Scratch class starts from RM 48, and the first 60-minute class is free.

Can Scratch be used offline?

Yes, the free Scratch app lets your child create and save projects without an internet connection. It runs on Windows 10 or later, macOS 10.13 or later, Chromebooks and Android tablets with Android 6.0 or later. You need the internet only once, to download and install it. After that, projects are saved inside the app or exported as files. The app is useful for long drives back to the kampung, for homes with patchy Wi-Fi, or for parents who prefer that a younger child stays away from comments and sharing for now. Sharing to the online community is possible later: export the project, log in on the website and upload it there. Older offline editors, Scratch 2.0 and Scratch 1.4, still exist, but Scratch 3 is the current version and the one schools use.

Can my child use Scratch on a phone?

Not really. The Scratch app does not install on Android phones, only on tablets, and the browser version on a phone screen is too small to drag blocks comfortably. The editor shows three areas at once: the block palette, the coding area and the stage. On a 6-inch screen these overlap, and children make mistakes that have nothing to do with coding. A phone is fine for watching a finished project or showing it to grandparents at Hari Raya. For building, a laptop, Chromebook or tablet works much better. If the only option is a tablet, add a cheap Bluetooth mouse. Many Malaysian families already have an older laptop at home, and it runs Scratch online without trouble, because the editor works in the browser and needs no strong hardware.

Does Scratch work on an iPad?

Yes, in the browser. There is no official Scratch app for iPad, so your child opens scratch.mit.edu in Safari or Chrome and presses Create. Scratch 3 was built to work on tablets, so blocks can be dragged with a finger. Saving works the same way as on a computer: with an account, projects save online, and without one, your child can download the project file to the iPad. An iPad of 10 inches or more is far more comfortable than the mini models, and a stylus helps with drawing sprites. Skip App Store apps that have "Scratch" in the name. They are made by other developers, and some charge money or show adverts. For children aged 5 to 7, the official ScratchJr app is available on iPad and is a better start than full Scratch.

What is the difference between Scratch and ScratchJr?

Scratch is for ages 8 to 16 and uses blocks with written labels, while ScratchJr is a simpler tablet app for ages 5 to 7 that uses picture blocks and needs no reading. Scratch has variables, conditions, loops, sounds and extensions, so a child can build real games with scores and levels. ScratchJr focuses on putting steps in order and telling short stories with characters. Both come from the same research tradition at the MIT Media Lab. A practical rule: if your child reads short English sentences alone and can use a mouse, start with Scratch. If not, ScratchJr is the better step. A 7-year-old who reads well can try both and choose. Plan the switch for the point when school reading gets easier, not for a birthday.

Is Scratch 3 the latest version?

Yes, Scratch 3 is the current version, released in January 2019, and it is what runs at scratch.mit.edu and in the official app. There is no Scratch 4 for the public. Searches for "Scratch 4" or "Scratch 5" usually lead to unofficial sites or video titles, not new versions. Scratch 3 replaced Scratch 2, which needed Adobe Flash, and it added tablet support and extensions such as Pen, Music, Text to Speech and micro:bit. If your child's school uses an older offline editor, projects from Scratch 2 open in Scratch 3 without trouble, but not always the other way round. Keep the app updated through the store or by downloading the latest version from the official page. That way your child sees the same blocks the teacher shows in class.

How do you save a Scratch project without an account?

Use File, then Save to your computer. Scratch downloads the project as an SB3 file, which your child can open later through File, then Load from your computer. This works in the browser and in the app, and it is a good choice for children under 10 whose parents do not want an account yet. Create one folder on the laptop, for example "Scratch projects", and name every file with the date and the project name, such as "rambutan-catch-2026-10-26". Without a clear name, projects get lost in Downloads. The file is small, usually under a few megabytes, so it is easy to email to a teacher or copy to a USB stick for school. When you later create an account, you can upload the old files and continue from where your child stopped.

Is Scratch available in Bahasa Melayu?

No, Bahasa Melayu is not on Scratch's list of interface languages, although Bahasa Indonesia and Chinese are. Most Malaysian children use Scratch in English. The language menu is the globe icon at the top of the editor. Indonesian is close enough for many words, but school terms differ, so most SK teachers keep the English interface. This is not a barrier: Scratch blocks use short words such as "move", "say" and "repeat", and children learn them fast. Your child can still type BM text inside projects, so a character can say "Selamat datang" or "Cuba lagi". For a Year 4 child preparing for RBT, working in English also builds the vocabulary used in Python later. If English is a struggle, a teacher who explains in BM helps more than a different interface.

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Scratch Online for Kids in Malaysia: How to Open It, Download It and Start a First Project

How do you open Scratch online or download it?

What age is Scratch for?

Does your child need a Scratch account?

Is Scratch safe for kids?

Which device works best for Scratch at home?

3 first Scratch projects for a weekend

How does Scratch connect to RBT and Asas Sains Komputer?

When should your child move from Scratch at home to lessons?

Summary

FAQ

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Ready to unlock your child's creative potential?

What age is Scratch for?

Does your child need a Scratch account?

Is Scratch safe for kids?

Which device works best for Scratch at home?

3 first Scratch projects for a weekend

How does Scratch connect to RBT and Asas Sains Komputer?

When should your child move from Scratch at home to lessons?

Summary

FAQ

More from Blog

Abacus vs Kumon vs Conceptual Math: Which Is Right for Your Child?

Online Math Class vs Private Tutor in Malaysia: Which Is Better for Your Child? (2026)

Math Tuition or Math + Coding? A Malaysian Parent's Guide to Building Real Understanding

Ready to unlock your child's creative potential?