Programming for Kids

So, as your toddlers are becoming schoolers, and if they are interested in computers, coding, programming etc, there are some very nice programs with which they can learn a little, or very much about programming. Even if they are not interested, there is a lot of different approaches, to animate them to learn anything.

Before you start working on programming with them, be aware that children s attention is quite unstable, and they loose interest quickly, so the point is to make the game out of the programming, to keep them interested. Second, programming requires a considerable measure of logarithmic expressions as you begin getting into the utilization of variables.

Before any other real program, I would surely recommend Hello Ruby play activities, this is a very fine way to teach children about programming, without using computer.

http://www.helloruby.com/play

So, let s go on some really funny programs for your little learners

SCRATCH

Developed by the MIT Media Lab is a visual programming language for children age 6 and up. It is free, and it runs on Mac, WIndows and Linux computers. Big “part” of the scratch is sharing, kids can share the stories, games and animations that they have made, or download other kid s creation and modify them. It is also available offline. In one word, it is great!

https://scratch.mit.edu/

HOPSCOTCH

This application is quite similar to Scratch, except it is made for Ipad, and works only on it.

https://www.gethopscotch.com/

ALICE

Alice is a free and open source 3D programming environment designed to teach students object-oriented and event-driven programming. With Alice, students drag and drop graphic tiles in order to animate an object and create a program. By emphasizing animations and social interactions, this approach was found to greatly increase the level of student interest in programming.

http://www.alice.org/index.php

ARDUINO

Arduino, well this is quite good toy for older kids, when I say older, I also mean 40+ . It is a platfrom working with both hardware and software components. It is similar to C++.

Projects that are aimed for kids to teach Arduino usually use a modification of Scratch to support simple programming on Arduino hardware. There are some really nice Arduino starter kits for children.

LEGO MINDSTORMS

Who does not like LEGO? Well, they also have a branch which besides brick building enables robotics building. Mindstorms Kits include sensors and motors and the programming is command-box. Regarding programming, they also have Scratch roots.