In this Scratch Jr. lesson, your students will dive into the exciting world of programming by creating their very own animal race. This lesson is designed to help them understand how to control the speed of different characters and sequence commands to achieve a desired outcome.

Instruct the students to open Scratch Jr. and start a new project.

Show them how to remove the default Scratch the Cat sprite by holding down on it until the "X" appears, and then clicking the "X" to delete it.

Guide the students to add two new animal sprites. Encourage them to choose one fast animal (like a horse or rabbit) and one slow animal (like an elephant or a pig).

Demonstrate how to select and add these sprites from the Scratch Jr. library and place them on the left hand side of the screen.

Instruct the students to choose a suitable background for the race, such as a field or track, by clicking on the background icon and selecting from the options available.

Explain that they will now program their animals to move across the field.

Remind them how to drag the movement blocks into the coding area for each sprite, ensuring that they begin with the green flag block.