8 Cool Toys for Teaching Your Daughter to Code
Including your children in your work life can be a challenge, especially if you work in a technical field, bouncing between break-fix work, burn-down charts, and preschool pickups. As a digital marketing professional at PowerToFly and single mom with twin girls (“the divas”), just getting to bedtime with the family fed and code ready for QA feels like a colossal win.
Somehow, when my girls entered middle school, they went from almost no screen time to being the masters of media consumption. With entertainment, education, and communication just a click away 24/7, I found it hard to manage my own digital life, much less the twins’! But most media doesn’t teach girls that they are more than consumers of endless clothing, cosmetics, and household products. My twins had no idea girls could become successful creators, builders, and makers. Looking for ways to boost their self-esteem, I decided it was time.
“Girls, I want you to learn to code like Mommy with some cool new toys. What d’ya think?” I peered into the rear view mirror gauging their reaction. I added my best furled mom-brow to let them know the question was maybe rhetorical / maybe not.
“Like the boys in our tech club at school?” Jada groaned. The stank-face from the backseat took me by surprise.
My heart sank. Pangs of parental guilt distracted me. I wanted to say, ‘No, like the amazing female engineer who designed that xyz app you use everyday,’ but I had nothing. I could feel my face starting to burn with the embarrassment of drawing a complete blank. I failed my babies!
I took a deep breath and regrouped.
“And also like the women building great apps today! DUH!” I replied.
That was last year, and we’ve seen improvements in their science and math grades since we started coding together, but their behavioral changes have been much more drastic. My divas are able to brainstorm efficiently, solve complex problems by breaking them down, plan projects and test hypotheses. What used to result in a complete meltdown of frustration and anxiety for my sensitive, older twin has faded into a “fail fast” approach to life. It’s also changed the way we approach problems around the house, since even the endless stack of dirty dishes in the sink has become a fun experiment with a whiteboard of possible solutions (and whiteboarding is way more fun than nagging).
Are you ready to dive into coding skills with your girls this season? Here are some amazing learning toys to get you started!
For Younger Kids
Built for the tiniest tech stars, the Fisher-Price Think and Learn Code-a-pillar, for ages 3–6, is a great tool for teaching children the very basics of coding, such as sequencing, reasoning, and problem solving. The Code-a-pillar has 8 segments that can be arranged to direct the toy down different paths, and also has lights and sounds to bring the toy to life. There are add-ons that grow with your child as their skills become more advanced.
If your princess is too young to read, the Cubetto from Primo Toys may be a perfect fit! This hands-on, Montessori approved toy uses wooden blocks to represent code sequences through maps, story books, and other activities. I love that this tool has no screens or electronics of any kind, so your child can focus on building cognitive thinking skills without getting too distracted by bells and whistles.
For Elementary Kids
The award-winning robots Dash and Dot from Make Wonder look cute on the outside, but inside they’ve got all the latest gear including infrared receivers and transmitters, programmable buttons and LEDs, Bluetooth, microphones, and more. With multiple apps and games for different ages and learning styles, Dot and Dash have enough flexibility to grow with your child, and just enough structure to teach solid programming and critical thinking skills.
Appearing in schools across the country, the Scratch programming language produced by the MIT Lab is a colorful (and free!) way to build games, animations, music, art, and interactive stories using basic programming skills. Scratch was designed for children ages 8–16 and is available to both parents and educators.
The Kano kit is our personal favorite, combining a Raspberry Pi 3 with the open source Kano operating system and add-on peripherals for ages 8 and up. The best part about the Kano kits are the lego-style picture instructions; the clear photos make building your first computer a breeze. Kano is also a great way to introduce older kids to real programming languages such as Python, Javascript, and Unix.
Tweens and Beyond
The Raspberry Pi has taken the world by storm since the original Model B was released in 2012, and over 8 million units have been sold making the Pi the best selling computer of all time in the UK. About the size of a credit card, the latest Raspberry Pi 3 runs for about $35 and includes a 1.24 GHz processor, integrated 802.11N wireless LAN and bluetooth connectivity. You can power almost anything with a Raspberry Pi, and there are heaps of free projects available at The Raspberry Pi Foundation’s website. Our favorite? The RetroPie video game emulator built into a Nintendo game cartridge!
One of my favorite websites for kids and winner of the Smart Media award, Tynker.com is a complete system that teaches coding through visual blocks to create games and apps, progressing to text-based coding over time. The user interface is top notch, and over 36 million children and 60,000 schools belong to the Tynker community. Annual subscriptions cost $75 and include over 15 programming courses covering different learning paths and a Minecraft server. Learn more about Tynker, and be sure to read their inspiring post “Girls Who “Make” Choose STEM” while you’re on their site.
On the Horizon
Still in the active research phase, Google’s Project Bloks is a tactile system of electronic boards and pucks that will allow developers and product designers to create new tools for children easily. Prototypes include a Sensor Lab, a Music Maker, and a Coding Kit that’s currently being tested in schools. Learn more about Project Bloks and sign up for email updates here.
Have you and your girls played with any of the toys on this list? Give us a shout on PowerToFly’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know how you like them!
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