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Ask HN: Best way(s) to teach 5-12 year olds how to code

3 points by davidwparker ↗ HN
Hello HN!

I've been tasked to help teach my nephews and niece with learning how to code.

So far, I've looked into www.code.org, https://kano.me/, http://www.robotturtles.com/, and https://scratch.mit.edu/.

What are some other good resources that I can use to work with the kids? I'm open to all suggestions- online, offline, free, OSS, paid, subscription, etc.

Thanks!

4 comments

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taylodl
First question: do they want to learn to code, because if they do then they already have something in mind that they'd like to be able to do. That'll go a long way in determining where to start. Not to mention that an approach useful for a 5 year old may not be so great for a 12 year old.
davidwparker
The 9-year-old definitely wants to learn. He's played with Scratch a good bit so far, and really enjoys it.

The 6-year-old basically wants to do whatever the 9-year-old is doing. However, his attention span isn't as large, so it has to be easier tasks.

As to the others, I'm not 100% certain.

I'll be sure to ask both what they'd like to make- but I'm pretty sure the answer to both is "games".

taylodl
If Scratch is going well and your 9-year-old is enjoying it, then I'd stick with it. You've already won half the battle. I just searched for 'using scratch for games' that returned a lot of interesting results. This is one of the results that looks like kids would find interesting: http://www.programmingbasics.org/en/downloads/scratchgames/