Scratch Garden screenshot

About Scratch Garden

An empty garden bed sits on the screen with a seed card next to it. When you tell a child they've earned a reward, they go to the computer and rub the silver off the card with the mouse or a finger. Underneath is a number: 1, 2, 3 or sometimes 5. That many seeds fly into the bed and come up as flowers, and the count at the top goes up.

Each flower is one minute of fun time. The bed fills from the front, and a red line marks the class goal for the week. When the flowers reach it, the count turns gold. There are two more rows behind the line for flowers past the goal.

At the end of the week, start fun time. A clock counts down the minutes the class earned, and a flower is picked each minute. When the clock gets to zero the bed is empty, ready for next week.

How it works

  1. Open Scratch Garden on a computer or board the children can reach and leave it there.
  2. When a child earns a reward, send them to scratch the card. Holding the mouse button down and rubbing works, and so does a finger on a touch screen. The space bar scratches it all at once.
  3. Open the menu to see how many flowers came up each day, change the goal, or undo a card scratched by mistake.
  4. When it's time, press Start fun time. You can pause it and carry on later.

The flowers are kept in the browser on that computer, so they're still there the next morning. The fun time clock follows the computer's clock, so it stays right if the screen goes to sleep.

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