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When teaching coding, it can be hard to move away from deliberate teaching of the coding app or programme to integrating it meaningfully into your classroom. Asking students to code means nothing if they don't have a direction - most children will just be dragging coding blocks randomly and giggling at the result - no thinking needed. Students need definite goals or projects to start the problem solving cycle and to encourage them to persist until the project is finished.
Here are some examples of what you could ask your students to do in Scratch or ScratchJr, but they will also work with other coding apps. Encourage the use of the four slides in ScratchJr to show a progression in story or animation.
Just finished reading? Ask the children to reenact a particular scene in the book.
Make a circus - talk about monkeys riding elephants, ringmasters needing to introduce what is going to happen, acrobats and jugglers.
Create a birthday party - balloons, music, dancing, presenting a birthday cake. Or make it a themed party where the edit tool needs to be used e.g. a kiwiana party
Fly to the moon - make the rocket take off from Earth and land on the moon, finding aliens there.
Animate a fairy tale.
Create a maze game where a sprite has to get through the maze without touching it.
Create a crazy motorbike and car show with stunts.
Show the classroom and make an animation of your favourite thing to do in the classroom.
Create a sports match - make a small soccer team get the ball into the goal, with an opponent team defending, show a cheering crowd.
Draw a quick maze. Code a path to get through it.
Bonus idea - What time of the year is it? Make a Christmas, spring, winter, Easter animation.