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Ask HN: Best resources for teaching my 8 year old to code

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Re: Ask HN: Best resources for teaching my 8 year old to code

#11

Post by tgerhbes346 »

Start with HTML, then CSS. If he wants to build his own website, let him do that. Walk him through making a basic page right away (static, unstyled HTML), have him link some together, etc. He will be motivated to learn new tricks as he seeks to improve the pages.

No need to learn javascript or something else at this point. if it's not immediately related to what he wants to do he'll get bored.

You have the right idea with feedback loop. Kids can teach themselves, given the resources. Your main job is to nurture his motivation.

Source: I taught music lessons to ages 7+, for over a decade.

Re: Ask HN: Best resources for teaching my 8 year old to code

#12

Post by jchin »

cityzen wrote: post #10

I would say start with Scratch ( https://scratch.mit.edu/ ) I have tried to teach my kids "programming" but it isn't until they are invested for their own reasons that they really care to learn this stuff. We let my oldest just look around at projects on scratch so he could find things HE was interested in (minecraft, gravity falls, etc) and then he was interested enough to start copying and manipulating projects (we…

I've been compiling Scratch books and here are my (and my kids') favorites:

- Coding for beginners using Scratch (Usborne)

- Code Your Own Games!: 20 Games to Create with Scratch by Max Wainewright

- Super Scratch Programming Adventure! by The LEAD Project

- Coding Projects in Scratch by Jon Woodcock

- Scratch Programming Playground by Al Sweigart

The list above is roughly in order of difficulty. The first two books have spiral binding so they sit flat on the table. I found this to be immensely helpful when my kids first started to use the computer / do Scratch. They could focus on using the mouse and tap-tap-tap typing on the keyboard without losing the page.

(edited for formatting)

Re: Ask HN: Best resources for teaching my 8 year old to code

#14

Post by hGfbjHzuHv »

I found the visual programming provided by the BBC micro:bit very approachable. Try it in the online simulator, then get a board for $10.

This provides a drag and drop interface for loops and variables and makes LEDs blink nicely.

Also makes it super easy to switch to the js or python representation of the visual program.

Tried it with a 7 year old. She got it I think.

Re: Ask HN: Best resources for teaching my 8 year old to code

#16

Post by cityzen »

jchin wrote: post #12
cityzen wrote: post #10

I would say start with Scratch ( https://scratch.mit.edu/ ) I have tried to teach my kids "programming" but it isn't until they are invested for their own reasons that they really care to learn this stuff. We let my oldest just look around at projects on scratch so he could find things HE was interested in (minecraft, gravity falls, etc) and then he was interested enough to start copying and manipulating projects (we…

I've been compiling Scratch books and here are my (and my kids') favorites: - Coding for beginners using Scratch (Usborne) - Code Your Own Games!: 20 Games to Create with Scratch by Max Wainewright - Super Scratch Programming Adventure! by The LEAD Project - Coding Projects in Scratch by Jon Woodcock - Scratch Programming Playground by Al Sweigart The list above is roughly in order of difficulty. The first two books…

Awesome, thanks for sharing this!

Re: Ask HN: Best resources for teaching my 8 year old to code

#17

Post by tootie »

Scratch is definitely the way to go to understand programming concepts. It's drag and drop so no need to remember arcane syntax rules, but it still lets you build loops, conditionals, variables, subroutines and all that jazz.

If you want to teach simple website creation with real code, then just use CodePen. By default, you get 4 tabs for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and preview. Absolute no need to introduce a server.

Re: Ask HN: Best resources for teaching my 8 year old to code

#19

Post by saluki »

SnowingXIV wrote: post #9
saluki wrote: post #3

Have him work through the book Head First HTML and CSS. Develop locally save, refresh the browser to view (Checkout Laravel Valet for local web server on OSX). After that walk through registering a domain and basic hosting, uploading via FTP. Just so he knows how it works. After that move over to storing things in a repo and deploying.

I agree with this simplistic approach, naturally I'm sure like many of us did when we were learning start to ask the questions "I'm doing this over and over again which seems really redundant, not secure, prone to human errors, etc, there must be a better a way!" and at that time you can happily explain to him that for the majority of the stack there is usually a solution that someone has come up with that solves tho…

y, I would recommend doing things the 'hard way' first, learning the ropes how to do things at a basic level.

Then reveal the magic and better practices.

Next learn to roll their own web app with authentication, etc.

Then show them a framework that takes care of the 'magic' behind the scenes.

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