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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

#221

Post by ObsoleteNerd »

lmilcin wrote: post #26
ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #14

My girl first got interested when she was 5, when she was already a pretty solid MC Survival player, so I got her into Scratch to mod her MC creative world and automate some agents. From there she was more interested in making stand-alone little animations/games in Scratch itself, and now (almost 2 years later) is mostly obsessed with making objects in Blender and has started doing physical electronics using various…

Ah, how I wish I was game dev instead of working mostly on Java backends for large financial institutions (and actually spending most of the time in meetings). I am pretty interested in the modding Minecraft with Scratch part. I have found some abandoned projects. Can you point me to what you have used that worked for you? Happy it worked for your girl and little scared she started at 5. I have two boys, one is 7 and…

For what it’s worth, I’m not actually a game dev it’s just something I’ve been playing with in the last few years as a side hobby. My primary career is infosec/red team, something she’s not playing with (yet) but she’s already picked up a few cheeky habits.

My general rule with all this stuff is just to expose them to as many things as possible and if they show ANY hint of interest in something then give them support and unlimited resources towards exploring that topic. Even if it means I’m staying up all night learning some new sport/software/etc so I can give them a solid go at it.

This is what my dad did with me and I’ve grown to appreciate how instrumental that was in me finding my passions early and building both a career I love + passionate hobbies from it.

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

#223

Post by jgwil2 »

sjg007 wrote: post #214
jgwil2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.5 hours a day seems like an immense amount of time for that age, but if the kid is pushing for it, good for them both.

My 7 years olds will spend 1.5 hours minimum playing roblox and minecraft. So... I think designing and building a game with them is a great idea!

Fair point. I guess I wasn't much older than seven when I began my Nintendo addiction.

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

#224

Post by sharker8 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #106
sharker8 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of this statement is that only someone with strong memories of his or her parents projecting their interests and him or her and later resenting the effects thereof would project a fear like this on total strangers on the internet.

Well OP is an adult and not my child.

Ah, interesting misread (this is why I love forums like this). What I was saying was you seem to be reflecting on your childhood and the resentments thereof (a somewhat universal exercise). But your reply was to OP (an adult who thinks he or she can get their kid hooked on programming). However, your reply was a projection of your own resentment of your childhood. Therein lies the irony.

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

#225

Post by michalalbrycht »

For my kids (8 and 6) we started with "hour of code" from code.org. They especially liked the one with maze solving: https://studio.code.org/hoc/1 of course we tried others later.Then we tried some ScrachJr - they really like creating short clips with all family members as characters. ScratchJr makes it easy to use face photographs on animated characters. They could easily spend 3 hours doing just that which proves that they must really like it (it's hard for my 6 year old son to concentrate on one thing only for that long). Now we are trying a programmable robot from Lego Boost (set 17101). They like to play with it for sure but we have it only since Christmas so that's not that long.

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

#226

Post by mathnmusic »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #162
mathnmusic wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my daughter (she's now 7), I followed this sequence: - Exact instructions challenge (from YouTube) - LightBot app on Android - Scratch with Harvey Mudd College's course on edX Snap! has some nice features but the community aspects of Scratch are so much better that she's happy building games there. Same as you, our goal was not to "learn programming", but just to have fun making things move with your ideas. Just…

Is this the YouTube video you mention above? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDA3_5982h8

Yes. This is basically teaching how to give instructions to a robot that does exactly what you tell it to - nothing more and nothing less! Recipes are nothing but simple algorithms including branches and loops, may be even procedures.

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

#227

Post by fatnoah »

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.e. all my efforts to pique interest didn't have any effect that I could see. He had to find his own way to it.

All of my attempts to interest my now 13 year old have met with similar indifference. He's genuinely impressed with the work I do, but is much more interested in being a streamer. Oh well.

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

#228

Post by schwartzworld »

colinmhayes wrote: post #220
schwartzworld wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly believe that programming should be considered a vital skill on par with reading and writing. I'm not saying everybody needs to be able to solve LeetCode or build production ready apps, but anybody who works with a computer could benefit from being able to do a little scripting. Programming is a skill that can be a foundation for thousands of different hobbies. Why do most adults know how to read and do bas…

Sure, but are 7 year olds ready? As this thread has shown some clearly are, but in my experience he vast majority are not. Why not wait until middle school instead of pushing them toward something they aren't ready for. It would be like teaching an 11 year old calculus.

Are they ready for what? I had no problem instructing a turtle around to draw a line on a screen with Logo or building a number guessing game. Nobody is talking about teaching 7 year olds Haskell.

To go with your calculus example, we don't teach 11 year olds calculus, but we do teach them things that they will need to know later in order to do calculus. We expect them to practice those skills again and again until they are easy.

You expose your kids to things, and hope they'll like some of them. That's just how it works. You just have to hope that they end up liking some of those things you've exposed them to, or at least gaining enough from them that was worthwhile. I know I got dropped off at soccer class plenty of times, even though I fucking hate soccer

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

#229

Post by markc »

jeffnappi wrote: post #137
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…

How do you attribute failure to the early introductions? Perhaps they didn't stick at the time, but they likely laid a solid foundation :)

I think there was a giant gap between expectations and reality. He wanted to program so he could make video games, but learning to program starts out text-based. The gulf between learning to code and learning to make video games like the ones he enjoyed is overwhelming.

I think the calculator eliminated that dissonance between expectation and possibility.

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

#230

Post by markc »

holografix wrote: post #150
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…

Very simple: first you showed him a complex, abstract, adult world boring thing. Then he found out how to apply code to immediately impact his real life. Code became _useful_ and _fun_. Aim for immediate practical application.

I think this nails it.
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