Teach Your Kids To Code
by Bradley Nice, Content Manager at ClickHelp.com — software documentation tool
There has been an uproar about kids learning to code lately. Unfortunately, most schools and parents don’t understand why coding is important. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits.
What Are The Benefits?
- Programming teaches vital problem-solving, creativity and communication skills;
- Encourages innovative thinking;
- Allows kids to be creative;
- Helps kids secure future jobs;
- Leads to success in other areas such as science and mathematics.
Below is a list of recourses designed specially for children. I hope, you’ll find it useful.
Teach Your Kids to Code (Python)
Teach Your Kids to Code is a parent’s and teacher’s guide to teaching kids basic programming and problem solving using Python, the powerful language used in college courses and by tech companies like Google and IBM.
Step-by-step explanations will have kids learning computational thinking right away, while visual and game-oriented examples hold their attention. Friendly introductions to fundamental programming concepts such as variables, loops, and functions will help even the youngest programmers build the skills they need to make their own cool games and applications.
Scratch (Scratch programming language)
With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others in the online community.
Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.
Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge.
CodeMonster (JavaScript)
Code Monster from Crunchzilla is an interactive tutorial for kids that focuses on action. Code changes immediately yield visible results.
Projects start with simple boxes and colors, rapidly progressing into exciting experiments with simple animation and fractals. Important programming concepts like variables, loops, conditionals, expressions, and functions are introduced by example.
Code Monster is a gentle and fun introduction to programming concepts. It is a first step in learning to program. It is not intended to teach all of computer science and programming.
Swift Playgrounds (Swift)
Swift Playgrounds is an app for iPad that makes learning Swift interactive and fun. It requires no coding knowledge, so it’s perfect for students just starting out. Solve puzzles to master the basics using Swift — a powerful programming language created by Apple and used by the pros to build today’s most popular apps. Then take on a series of challenges and step up to more advanced playgrounds designed by Apple and other leading developers.
Daisy the Dinosaur
This free, fun app has an easy drag & drop interface that kids of all ages can use to animate Daisy and make her dance on their screen. Kids will intuitively grasp the basics of objects, sequencing, loops and events by solving this app’s challenges.
Do you know any other coding resourses for children? Please, share in the comments and I’ll add them to the list.
Have a nice day!
Bradley Nice,
Content Manager at ClickHelp.com — best online documentation tool for SaaS vendors
