I heard that many kids learn some programming to mod Minecraft. So if you want your children learn programming, find a motivation and do not force it.
Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
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Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
#32This has been an interesting topic for my wife and I. Our kids have very limited screen time, and do not have access to a computer / smart phone / iPad on a regular basis. Recently, though, my 1st grade son, the oldest, found the book "Coding Projects in Python" ( https://www.dk.com/us/9781465461889-coding-projects-in-pytho... ), and read through it for about a week before asking if he could use my computer to try so…
If he doesn't have internet access on that box, won't that be a problem once he needs some library from PIP or elsewhere? I'm sure right now he's just using the standard libraries, though.
I agree, the setup now won't work for too long. He is using all standard libraries now - once he needs more, we will figure it out as we go!
Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
#33I got my 5yo a Lego EV3 robot for his latest birthday. There's a good combination of building a real thing and then messing about with the visual program editor to make it move, shoot, turn, etc.
Seems to have figured out basics like how to change the number of repeats.
Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
#34I change his diaper, hug him, and tell him I look forward to him crawling.
But seriously, I'm probably not going to Teach Programming; it'll be be one of the Things Your Dad Does, and he's welcome to be interested; I'll push him to understand the computer as a building block and change agent of society, but programming, meh.
If he really wants to fart with a tablet, I'll redirect him to a rasppi - to be a cocreator, not just a consumer.
Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
#35https://scratch.mit.edu/
+1 for Scratch, especially if they are younger. My son (when he was 8) really loved working through the Super Scratch Programming Adventure book (https://www.nostarch.com/scratch).
Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
#36The best site I'v seen for kids. Is a site I ran across by accident on reddit. http://silentteacher.toxicode.fr/
The simplicity and slow progression of it is really great for kids. My daughter is 7 and she loved it.
Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
#37Has anyone ever used https://www.tynker.com/ ?
Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
#38Man if I had focused on programming instead of gaming I would do myself such a favor. Even though Im a dev I find it hard to do get much better nowdays, finding time etc.
Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
#39My now 13 year old son first started at age 9 through Minecraft hacking away at mods. More recently he moved into creating JavaScript games and creating Raspberry Pi projects with Python. Our latest project is a retro arcade system built with the Pi.
So games and fun projects that we work on together. Also don't try and overly force coding standards at this young age. Let them hack away and have fun.
Re: Ask HN: How are you teaching your children programming?
#40I would not. Kids should be outside playing and interacting with other kids, not coding.
Why are those two things mutually exclusive?
Coding, in my experience, tends to consume a lot of time especially for a kid who is getting into it. I think many of us here can recall the long hours or even all-night coding sessions we did when we were young, learning, and everything about programming was new, exciting, and frustrating at the same time.
When I was young (12-15) I spent a lot of time programming and very little interacting with other people outside of school hours.
The same thing can happen with video games or even reading of course.