Scratch 1.2.1

Scratch is a program I hold in fairly high regard. It's a program to teach you the basics of coding and does so with an interface that is so simple it's meant for children. You can create animations, video games, and interactive artwork easily. It's known to be so effective at it that even the beginner's coding class in my high school used this software to explain the fundamentals of coding.

The first thing you'll notice when you boot it up is a four panel window. Each panel serves a purpose. The elements library holds the pieces of movement, sound, senses, and the general rules/conditions of the programming language. The scripting area is where you snap all those elements together and create a proper "program". The staging area is where you put each sprite in and change their dimensions and location. The preview window is exactly what it sounds like. Scratch previews how your programs will work once it's executed. The preview window will only play once you hit the execute button. There are other tabs above these four panels where you can access your costume and sound library, which lets you customize the sprites.

This program is deceptively simple but is also capable of doing incredibly complex things. If you look online, you can find surprisingly complicated games made entirely from this program. If you want to give your kid a quick head start into the world of programming (which is only becoming more lucrative as time goes on), then Scratch is easily one of the best options you can have.