If you’ve ever helped a Code Club creator bring a Scratch project to life in your club, you’ve definitely worked with sprites. But what exactly is a sprite — and how can they become a key tool for creativity, storytelling, and problem-solving in your club?

Discover what makes sprites so special, and how Code Club creators can use them to spark their imaginations and build their confidence in coding.

What is a Scratch sprite?

In the block-based programming language Scratch, a sprite is any object or character that can be programmed. It could be a cat, a robot, a spaceship, or even something abstract like a button or a speech bubble. Sprites can move, talk, change appearance, make sounds, and interact with other sprites.

Each sprite has:

• Costumes — different appearances or frames, perfect for animations or storytelling
• Scripts — the blocks of code that control what the sprite does
• Sounds — effects or voice clips that bring the sprite to life

How sprites work in projects

Sprites are a very important creative element in a Scratch project. In games, they might be the player character, the enemy, or a moving obstacle. In animations or stories, they become the characters that talk, dance, or react. And in interactive projects, they can act as buttons or score counters.

Sprites can respond to:

• Keyboard presses (e.g. arrow keys to move)
• Mouse clicks or movements
• Broadcast messages from other sprites
• Changes in variables (like a score or timer)

With just a few blocks, creators can program sprites to jump, spin, teleport, or even have a full-on conversation.

Creative ways to use sprites in your Code Club

“Sprites are wicked! What the kids see is a way to express their creativity and individuality, and get them to do things and interact with other sprites or the environment around them. What I see is a surreptitious method of teaching them object-oriented programming without them even noticing. Each sprite (object) has its own code (class) and interactions (methods). The ‘Boat race’ has always been our Code Club’s favourite Scratch project, year after year.”

Marcus, Code Club mentor, Wales

Here are four fun and imaginative ways to get your creators to think creatively about how they can use sprites within Code Club projects. 

1. Remix and personalise 

Encourage learners to personalise their projects by choosing their own sprites. Two projects that are great for this are Find the bug and Space talk. Creators can pick from a range of sprites to make the scenarios their own, or even create their own sprite — either by drawing or using their own photos! 

2. Create your own

Using the built-in paint editor, creators can draw their own sprites. They can go wherever their imagination takes them, perhaps creating avatars that look like themselves, or entirely new characters. This is great for storytelling!   

You can also encourage creators to draw new faces with our Stress ball project or get creative with Music maker, where they can create new sprites that play music. 

3. Bring stories to life with costumes

Sprites can have different costumes, which creators can animate — this can be a great way to show emotions or story progression in a project. To develop their animation skills, creators could explore Rock band and animate the drumsticks hitting the drum, or Grow a dragonfly, where they can use a costume to make a dragonfly’s wings move.

4. Sound effects and voiceovers

Adding voices or sound effects can turn a simple sprite into a fully-formed character. Whether it’s a robot beep or a voice recorded in session (don’t forget to pack headphones for when everyone tests their projects!), audio can really help creators connect with what they’ve made.

The Sprint! project is great for experimenting with audio — your creators could add running noises, or change the congratulatory cheer at the end. Another nice project for audio creativity is Broadcasting spells, where creators can add sounds to sprites that turn into toads, and then make noises as they grow and shrink!

Tips for supporting creativity with sprites

Encourage exploration and let creators spend time browsing the sprite library or drawing their own sprites. This might get messy, but they will learn what they can do with a sprite and how they can make it their own.

Ask open-ended questions when you are talking to creators about how they can expand their project. Try “What else could this sprite do?” or “Can you make your sprite react to the player?”

Leave time for a ‘show and tell’ at the end of a session — this provides the perfect space for creators to explain what their sprite does and why they made it that way. You’ll often be amazed by the thought and creativity behind their choices.

“The Code Club engaging projects have fostered much interest and excitement with the creators when they see and hear the sprites’ interactions. Creators discover really fulfilling moments as they place coding blocks into order and watch their work come to life.”

Mahendren Reddy — IT Teacher at ML Sultan Primary School, South Africa

Learn to code and bring sprites alive! Discover animation, storytelling, and game design with our Scratch Code Club projects.