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Ask HN: An advanced Computer Science curriculum for kids stuck at home?

3 points by hammerbrostime ↗ HN
My two kids (12 and 15) are newly stuck at home, and I'm looking at it as a great opportunity to teach them more computer science than they might learn at school. Both have mastered what Scratch has to offer them, and I'm looking for something more in-depth than what Code.org and Khan Academy have to offer - especially if we might actually be stuck home for a long. In particular, I want them to move beyond the block-oriented programming pedagogy used by Code.org and Scratch.

What resources can you recommend that are in-depth and age-appropriate? I'd be open to college-level textbook recommendations.

8 comments

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artemisyna
Depending on what you think your kids would be interested, looking through a few university courses might be a good call.

Most top CS schools (Stanford, MIT, CMU) have some sort of online lectures. There's also always Udacity/edx as well.

LarryMade2
You might try Processing as a language, gives them a platform to experiment with coding with quick audio/visual results: https://processing.org/

Another is give them a old PC or laptop with a blanked HDD and a distro disk/usb (or balank medium and instruct them to choose one on distrowatch) and let them a taste of setting up a system.

RNeff
Khan Academy has programming classes, including both AP courses. Also look at their Pixar in a Box classes. Free

EdX has a bunch of college level CS courses, including several verions of Harvard's CS50 courses. Start with Introduction to CS. Free to audit.

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