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Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

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Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#121

Post by kfarr »

GraffitiTim wrote: post #24

My daughter (who just turned 4) seemed like she might like programming, so I started out having her "program" a stuffed walrus, by telling it whether to go forward, backward, left, or right to get to a piece of food. Her natural inclination was to point to where it should go, so I first taught her that the walrus doesn't understand pointing or the word "here", just the directions. Then we started "programming each ot…

Love the idea! I'll try that with my 4yo daughter this week, I think she'd love to tell me what to do :P

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#122

Post by mywittyname »

markc wrote: post #120

Didn't work: - BASIC, Ruby, Python, Java setups + intros, tutorials. - LEGO Mindstorms - Scratch, Squeak - Coding classes / camps Note that I "made these things "available" but never pushed. I'd set up the environment, show him to to edit and run the code, and pointed him to tutorials. After some time went by I'd show him the next thing. Rinse and repeat. Worked: A Texas Instruments programmable calculator. He read t…

> A Texas Instruments programmable calculator. He read the manual, played with it a bit, then found out he could automate some of his homework. Then found out he could make simple games. Then fairly impressive games.

Some thing never change. This is literally how I started programming too. "Hey, I can automate my homework" -> "Wait, I can write a program to play poker with all the time I saved by not doing homework."

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#123

Post by jugg1es »

markc wrote: post #120

Didn't work: - BASIC, Ruby, Python, Java setups + intros, tutorials. - LEGO Mindstorms - Scratch, Squeak - Coding classes / camps Note that I "made these things "available" but never pushed. I'd set up the environment, show him to to edit and run the code, and pointed him to tutorials. After some time went by I'd show him the next thing. Rinse and repeat. Worked: A Texas Instruments programmable calculator. He read t…

I also started programming using my calculator. I would write programs that fed me equations I needed to memorize via a menu system but by the time I programmed it, I had already memorized it and never needed to use it.

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#124

Post by jugg1es »

chasd00 wrote: post #10

The most success i've had with my 8 year old is building games in Roblox and the LUA scripting that comes along with that. We also have written some MicroPython to drive a small rover. With kids, or my kids at least, you have to be able to show some tangible results quickly or else they get bored. ...kind of like dealing with your boss. another thing that my 8 year old is really into that surprised me is networks. Ex…

Interesting! Networking is what really caught my attention as a young teenager. My personal epiphany moment early on was chatting on an AOL chatroom with someone in Japan when I was 10 and realizing what computers could actually do

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#125

Post by chondl »

I've started working with my third child who is 10 years old. The older two weren't interested, but my youngest is really interested. We first tried to use Scratch and some of the online learning sites, but they all drove me crazy because things would break or wouldn't work like the videos. We switched to Python using Pygame Zero which is going MUCH better. Definitely recommend Python: using whitespace for blocks is very understandable and easier than balancing {}. At 10 my child is able to exclusively drive the keyboard and make many of the changes he wants. We've been doing this for about 6 weeks spending 1-2 hours on Sat and Sun.

My older son is much more interested in mechanical engineering so I'm mentoring his robotics team for programming.

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#126

Post by jacobkg »

mywittyname wrote: post #122
markc wrote: post #120

Didn't work: - BASIC, Ruby, Python, Java setups + intros, tutorials. - LEGO Mindstorms - Scratch, Squeak - Coding classes / camps Note that I "made these things "available" but never pushed. I'd set up the environment, show him to to edit and run the code, and pointed him to tutorials. After some time went by I'd show him the next thing. Rinse and repeat. Worked: A Texas Instruments programmable calculator. He read t…

> A Texas Instruments programmable calculator. He read the manual, played with it a bit, then found out he could automate some of his homework. Then found out he could make simple games. Then fairly impressive games. Some thing never change. This is literally how I started programming too. "Hey, I can automate my homework" -> "Wait, I can write a program to play poker with all the time I saved by not doing homework."

Same here. Twenty years ago my dad gave me a TI-85 and told me I could program it. I remember being stuck for a while until I learned that “string” meant text. The first game I built was hangman, using “split mode” where you could show half the screen as a graph and half as text

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#127

Post by splintercell »

djeiasbsbo wrote: post #118
ajfjrbfbf wrote: post #113

Make sure they're bored out of their mind all the time. No Fortnite, no YouTube, no tablet. (steers them clear of ADHD too) Either they go play outside with their friends or they hack what they can on some outdated/underpowered device you give them (Arduino, TI84, Arch linux boot screen, etc). Read them technical books before bed.

> "steers them clear of ADHD too" Could you elaborate on that a bit more? I have ADHD and am very interested in anything about it but have never heard anything like that.

Not OP, but I kinda know what he's talking about, here's a shortened version of how it works:

- Stop drinking coffee - Get rid of Social media notifications and stuff - Actively aim to bore yourself when the day starts, don't look at the phone. - Then suddenly you'll notice that your brain is dying to do something interesting, so much that you'll start reading toothpaste's label while brushing your teeth. Start building up stories about how that label came to be (and all that is ok, as long as it isn't jumping around). - Then open your computer and the task you want to do, and find yourself be VERY INTERESTED in doing that.

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#128

Post by asicsp »

Not personal experience, but I've been listening to Teaching Python podcast [0]

They talk about setting up the environment, making it exciting for the kids to come and play, creating expectations, letting kids figure out instead of always answering every question, etc.

[0] https://www.teachingpython.fm/

Re: Ask HN: Please share your experience teaching your kids to program

#130

Post by jonfromsf »

dave_sid wrote: post #59
colinmhayes wrote: post #9

Your kid is 7. I'm pretty sure hat I was eating dirt when I was 7. If he has showed you he's interested in programming then go ahead, but make sure you're not projecting your own interests onto your kid. It'll lead to resentment in 7 or 8 years.

I agree completely. I don’t understand the recent trend to believe that we need to get kids into software engineering as soon as they pop out of the birth canal. My friend is an accountant. If he asked me for advice on how to make spreadsheets more fun for his kid I’d think he had something against his kid. In the words of Pink Floyd “Hey! Nerds! Leave them kids alone!”

My kids LOVE making spreadsheets. They use it to track points in various competitions and games and stuff like that. The script is actually a good entry point into programming too (simple stuff like SUM and AVERAGE, and constants like $A$1 or whatever).
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