{"id":500,"date":"2020-10-14T17:05:40","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T17:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=500"},"modified":"2020-10-14T17:05:40","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T17:05:40","slug":"kids-programming","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/kids-programming","title":{"rendered":"Teaching your kids how to write computer programs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by\u00a0Marshall Brain<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quick Intro – If you are looking for a quick and easy way to teach your kid a “real programming language”, without downloading anything or buying anything, try these Python tutorials<\/a>. Your kid will be writing and modifying code in just a few minutes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s say that you have children, and you would like to help them learn computer programming at a youngish age. As the father of four kids, I have tried to approach it from several different angles. What I would like to do here is collect some ideas for parents who are looking for different options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with a something important: Every kid is different. Some kids are reading and writing fluently years ahead of other kids. For them, learning to program is probably easier. Some kids have the basic analytical skills a lot earlier than others (Here’s a story<\/a> about a 9-year-old writing full-blown iPhone apps). And so on. You try to expose your kids to programming and it may or may not “take” the first time, simply because of these differences. So you wait a few months and try again, or you might try a different approach. Understand that, the first time you try to introduce your kids to programming, your kids might not “get it” at all. And that’s OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second thing to realize is that real analytical skills often don’t start appearing until age 11 or 12 or 13 in many kids, so expecting huge breakthroughs prior to that may be unrealistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, there are lots of fun things you can try as early as five or six…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Games<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with a few games. Here are three games that my kids have particularly enjoyed. They teach basic problem solving ideas in different ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n