5.1 Pen blocks
The pen block allows you to draw images in Scratch. Just like in our daily lives, we can use a pen to draw anything. The pen tool draws lines behind the centre of a sprite as it moves.
While drawing in Scratch, the sprite always carries a pen. Everywhere the sprite moves, it leaves a line behind. If you want to draw a shape, move the sprite in that shape and the line will be drawn.
A fun way to introduce this concept is to ask a learner to become a sprite and go to the whiteboard (or blackboard) blindfolded with a marker pen (or chalk), ready to draw; but always waiting for instruction from other learners around her/him who direct her/him where to move her/his hand. In this way, the children are giving and following specific instructions such as “move the marker 10 centimetres up, five centimetres forward. Turn 90 degrees to the left.”
The pen block is not a default block in Scratch. You must add it as an extension block. Follow these steps to add the pen block:
Step 1: Click on the add extension button in the bottom left-hand corner.
Step 2: Choose pen.
Step 3: The pen section will appear at the bottom of the block’s menu.
Figure 132: Adding a pen