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Ask HN: What's the best way to teach my kid to code?

12 points by ajessup ↗ HN
Hey folks. Apologies if this question has been asked before (if it has, please point me to the answers). I want to get my 5 year old son into coding. He's pretty handy with basic tasks on the computer, and more importantly is inquisitive and creative.

He also has the attention span of a 5 year old, so if he wants to learn anything, it not only needs to asume no prior knowledge of programming, but also needs to quickly and repeatably deliver some escalating level of gratification in order to keep a kid (or for that matter, most adults) interested.

What resources are around geared towards kids learning to code that don't assume too much knowledge, are hands on and interactive, and are actually fun for a 5 year old? If you're a parent who's taught their kids to code, what resources and/or techniques worked for you? What didn't?

(A future programming prodigy is grateful in advance for the benefit of your insight.)

5 comments

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squidbot
I started my 6 year old daughter on Scratch. I think it will fill the bill for your son. It's very visual and includes enough control structures to allow you to make real programs (games and media presentations are its forte.)

http://scratch.mit.edu/

Now that she's 8 and has a better understanding of math she's moved on to http://inventwithpython.com/

glimcat
There may also be some good puzzle games around which teach relevant skills. Boolean algebra, stuff like that.

Simple programmable robots are also good, like the old LEGO turtle. If it's accessible, kids will often self-determine things they want to make it do and then work at it until it happens (provided they don't get stuck too badly).

brandoncordell
This will be exactly the path I choose to teach my son. I personally played around with it and think it's a fantastic program.
polyfractal
If he likes Legos, the Lego Mindstorms kits are awesome. You get to build projects and then program them to do things. I'm not sure how the kit is currently set up, but 10 years ago it shipped with a basic, graphical programming language. You snapped together programming blocks to create the logic. Would probably be perfect for a younger kid.

When your kid outgrows the graphical language (I did after a while) people have ported Java and C to the Mindstorms too.