We have a very talented grandson who would love to begin to learn about coding. He is seven years old and we are trying to find some free learning resources that are both fun and intuative.
Was hoping someone here would be able to suggest something that would help to get him started?
Much appreciated in advance!
Is he into any games? Minecraft Mods/Plugins are a great way if he’s into that. I think it’s probably easier for kids to get to grips with coding if it’s additionally based on something they already enjoy. There’s tons and I mean tons of content for it, including a couple of low code things. Likewise with Roblox, I’m fairly sure.
Hey @asarcona never thought of exploring electronics! That is something physical he can get his hands on and have fun along the way. Great suggestion and really appreciate it thank you.
Oh yes loves his games, drives his poor mum absolutely bonkers. Just looked in to the Roblox Creator Hub which looks great as it is visual. Will now look in to Minecraft which I don’t have a Scooby about hahaha. Guess I’m learning as I go along too!
Cheers Keith will look in to it now. Just found Google’s CS First initiative which also looks quite interesting and entertaining.
When I learned to program had to sit with a magazine or manual and copy the text and if everything went well I’d have something after several hours. I once entered several pages of Basic in a truly painful exercise only to have it fail with the dreaded Syntax Error! A week later the magazine posted the correct line of code but by that time… Was already on to the next program and never had the heat to enter all that code again. Kids will never know that side of it having the internet at their fingertips! Man we had to figure it out or wait it out! Still remember those days fondly though.
Roblox seems to be the new Minecraft, and since modding is a first party thing, I would guess that’s the easiest place for someone to start.
Minecraft is a bit different because there are two versions of the game. Java, and Bedrock. Bedrock does have some first party coding stuff a bit like Roblox which does seem more aimed at kids: https://education.minecraft.net/ - I think it’s Python based?
Whereas, Java edition is pretty much all third party when it comes to mods and plugins. They are created in java instead. There’s a lot of content out there for it, but not in a way that Roblox or Bedrock has it documented. It’s mainly in the form of YouTube tutorials. There are also some visual editors here like MCCreator which are likely easier for someone young
As a kid I used to enjoy seeing things work and back in the day it was an Erector set… today it’s a raspberry pi or an arduino!!
Best of luck, and happy learning!
My grandchildren loved Scratch, created by MIT:
https://scratch.mit.edu/. It is a drag and drop code phrases to create mini programs using built in graphic characters. It can created some quite complex apps and games as kids progress in their skill level. I had fun with it myself. Best of all, it’s free.
Welcome back Peggy!
Six years since your last post!!
Sincerely appreciated will check it out. According to his mum he has been having a great time playing around with the above suggestions, and went to bed and straight to sleep tonight, which as we all know as parents is a real blessing indeed.
My grandkids also loved Minecraft, but it is less about programming at a code level. Alice has 3D graphics and is fun for that reason. Scratch is just plain fun. My son built a whole kids’ summer camp week around programming in Scratch for his kids & their friends, who are all now high school, college and college grad levels. One grandson is now majoring in computer science. He was very involved with programming on his high school robotics team. it all started with Scratch!
Sounds perfect for him. He is ever so inquisitive and loves problem solving. Personally I’d love for him to take up programming. Growing up it kept me out of all kinds of trouble and enabled me to go straight to work for D.E.C, working with VAX and VMS (I loved that job). We are going to have a video call with him tomorrow and I’ll pass along your success stories to him. Wouldn’t surprise me if one day I end up working for him hahahaha.
Kids these days! Too damn smart.