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Ask HN: How should I teach code to kids?

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Re: Ask HN: How should I teach code to kids?

#81

Post by mbubb »

rickyc091 wrote: post #62

There's already a lot of good advice here, but I really wanted to emphasize Scratch ( https://scratch.mit.edu/ ) as a first step. A 7 year old (2nd grader) and 9 year old (4th grader) should be able to navigate their way through Scratch. Start off by following the tutorial on the right panel when you create a new project. Once you're done with that, your cousins will probably be exploring on their own. Help their exp…

I had positive experience teaching kids scratch in an afterschool club environment. The Turtle library in Python is a good transition to show them things that Scratch cannot (its limited in terms of what you can do with variables , lists, etc)

Re: Ask HN: How should I teach code to kids?

#82

Post by mbubb »

poisonarena wrote: post #70

I live in mexico city, and I teach python to a group of kids at burger king 2 times a week.. I didnt come up with a lesson plan so I use "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" as a really loose guide on how to begin programming..

No Starch is awesome for kids - the "Doing math with Python" is a good title too

Re: Ask HN: How should I teach code to kids?

#83

Post by rickyc091 »

mbubb wrote: post #81
rickyc091 wrote: post #62

There's already a lot of good advice here, but I really wanted to emphasize Scratch ( https://scratch.mit.edu/ ) as a first step. A 7 year old (2nd grader) and 9 year old (4th grader) should be able to navigate their way through Scratch. Start off by following the tutorial on the right panel when you create a new project. Once you're done with that, your cousins will probably be exploring on their own. Help their exp…

I had positive experience teaching kids scratch in an afterschool club environment. The Turtle library in Python is a good transition to show them things that Scratch cannot (its limited in terms of what you can do with variables , lists, etc)

For a Python version of Scratch you can actually try out https://www.codesters.com. It's python with drag and drop blocks similar to Scratch, but you actually write real python code. It's a great transition.

Thanks for the reminder! I forgot that another neat thing about Scratch is that it connects with different modules such as littlebits, arduino, etc. This allows them to integrate hardware with the games they build and paves the way to circuits, etc.

Edit. Adding info about Scratch extensions.

Re: Ask HN: How should I teach code to kids?

#84

Post by sotojuan »

beojan wrote: post #26
Eridrus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Python rather than JavaScript?

The real question is "why JavaScript rather than Python?" The only reason JavaScript is so popular is that it runs in the browser. JavaScript is otherwise a pretty poor language, and certainly much harder to learn than Python.

JS is a pretty bad first language to learn—too many quirks and random syntax in the last few years.

Python is dead simple—I recently had to take on a project written in it having never programmed in Python before and I essentially did not have to learn it to get the feature done.

Re: Ask HN: How should I teach code to kids?

#85

Post by cies »

KTurtle (comes with most Linux distros). If your kids are not fluent in English, then KTurtle sports several languages through KDE's language packs. Both the commands, docs and error messages are translated. It is a bit like LOGO, but with different syntax.

If English is no barrier then https://code.world/ is also pretty awesome, and in the browser.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the devs of KTurtle.

Re: Ask HN: How should I teach code to kids?

#86

Post by paulryanrogers »

et-al wrote: post #73
jampa wrote: post #30

Game modding The first contact I had to actual programming was messing with Pawno scripts to make gameservers in San Andreas multiplayer when I was 12... Spent hours and hours programming with it. It started simple placing coordinates where the cars should spawn until I started to mess with more 'complicated' stuff like gates that open when player get near. I would get some game that is popular among kids that age (m…

Games are a great way to get kids into computers and code. Many of us who grew up around MS-DOS had to figure out ways to get around the 640kb base memory limitation and deal with conflicting IRQ ports. Did we want to do that? No, we just wanted to play Dune II. But through that, it got us tinkering with installing new programs, tinkering with configuration files, and eventually learning BASIC, putting together your…

Doom modding was a challenge too, though more because the tools were immature. Now Duke3D changed that when it shipped with Build. Now I know teens who still use Build to experiment despite it being nearly as old as them.

Re: Ask HN: How should I teach code to kids?

#87

Post by seanxh »

I don't think there is a one size fit all method, so take mine as grain of salt. From my exp of teaching my brother programing, I think something that combine HW with SW is a good way to go, he first got into programing by playing/programing with Lego EV3(age 6~7). I think the EV3 (Labview) programing interface is very easy for kids to understand some basic ideas behind programing. Also, the ability of seeing their programs can run in actual brick also help a lot. Then after that it become more easy to learn some other more advance stuffs(Javascript, python, etc)

Re: Ask HN: How should I teach code to kids?

#89

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

hal9000xp wrote: post #58

My father bought me a russian clone of ZX Spectrum 48k in 1994 (in post soviet states, ZX Spectrum was hugely popular during 90s just like in UK during 80s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum My father was not an engineer and had no idea what to do with it. I also was completely uneducated (I was 10 years old boy in 1994) and basically ignored school classes (or prefered to sleep there). So I also had no idea…

> It will create a mess in their heads!

Worse, teaching under-12 year olds to think "logically" like computers (of any kind) may mess them up for life.

We'll probably hear about it in a few years, given the current fashion. After the consequences become apparent and the victims complain, if they can.

(Fortunately, humans in general are quite resistant to instruction.)

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