If I remember correctly Scratch has two kinds of variables - object-bound and global. When teaching my son about Scratch, at the time of introducing variables I told him he had been working with object variables/properties the whole time: the position x and y (and to a lesser extent the object sprite/appearance (not sure what it is called in the English version of Scratch)).

From there it was easy to introduce more (custom) variables as more properties of the corresponding character - whether the monster is alive or not, how much energy it has, etc.

The general concept of variable (not bound to a specific object) can follow later: instead of "something we know about an object", talk if "something we know".

If I remember correctly, Scratch has two kinds of variables - object-bound and global. When teaching my son about Scratch, at the time of introducing variables I told him he had been working with object variables/properties the whole time: the position x and y (and to a lesser extent the object sprite/appearance (not sure what it is called in the English version of Scratch)).

From there it was easy to introduce more (custom) variables as more properties of the corresponding character - whether the monster is alive or not, how much energy it has, etc.

The general concept of variable (not bound to a specific object) can follow later: instead of "something we know about an object", talk of "something we know".