Coding for kids

silly_moo

I think it may be a good idea to introduce my 8 year old to coding but I'm not sure how and where to start. I have decided on Scratch but now am reading Python may be a better option at that age, especially that my son has no imagination but he's very good at maths and anything requiring brain power.

Would you suggest we start with a book or is it better to book a course to start with? Would you recommend any courses/titles for complete beginners suitable for children?

My coding experience is limited to Pascal and Delphi I did years ago at school so know absolutely nothing about Python and won't really be able to help him. I was hoping this would be something he could work on on his own during the October break while I'm working.

forgotmyname

Pascal...  tsk the young uns today,   not COBOL then... 

Programming language that is better for what?  

Web design, Arduino, ESP32, Raspberry Pi's, Android or IOS Apps, Windows Programs or Apps?

Where will it lead?  Tinkering or Full time employment?     Python is good but would you top that up with
C/C++ etc?  

I hate programming, going through many lines of code to find that silly typo and I make a lot of them.
Moved onto ESP32's after Arduino's and a lot is similar but its always the technical details that mess
with your brain.

Neil_Jones

silly_moo said:

I think it may be a good idea to introduce my 8 year old to coding but I'm not sure how and where to start. I have decided on Scratch but now am reading Python may be a better option at that age, especially that my son has no imagination but he's very good at maths and anything requiring brain power.

Would you suggest we start with a book or is it better to book a course to start with? Would you recommend any courses/titles for complete beginners suitable for children?

My coding experience is limited to Pascal and Delphi I did years ago at school so know absolutely nothing about Python and won't really be able to help him. I was hoping this would be something he could work on on his own during the October break while I'm working.

Your child's school will almost certainly introduce him to coding (themselves or via Code Club) and it will almost certainly be through Scratch in the first instance.

There are a bunch of resources for the Code Club here you can work through, including some Python material (no dead parrots ):

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/codeclub

A lot of the programming languages like Delphi were later developed into what's called Object-Orientated Programming languages (ie actual "proper" user interfaces - windows, menus, something you can physically see and interact with on the screen with your mouse - and Delphi is pretty much Pascal with that add-on.

HTML, the language of web pages, is always a good starting point too, since you come into (indirect) contact with it everyday on the internet.  What you're looking at now is built in HTML (with one or two underlying other technologies to help).

a

In school, my friends daughter then age 7 started programming BBC MICRO:BIT - little flashing signs etc.

She is now 8 plus a few months, hopefully in the next few weeks she will be building a digital oscilloscope, if covid does not restrict travel further.

silly_moo

forgotmyname said:

Programming language that is better for what?  

Web design, Arduino, ESP32, Raspberry Pi's, Android or IOS Apps, Windows Programs or Apps?

Where will it lead?  Tinkering or Full time employment?     Python is good but would you top that up with
C/C++ etc?  

 It doesn't really need to lead anywhere, just hoping this will help his focus and logical thinking and provide entertainment as well as a bit of a challenge as he's mostly bored at school. But if he gets into it for real then all the better. 

silly_moo

a said:

In school, my friends daughter then age 7 started programming BBC MICRO:BIT - little flashing signs etc.

She is now 8 plus a few months, hopefully in the next few weeks she will be building a digital oscilloscope, if covid does not restrict travel further.

Ooh I didn't know they did coding at school, never heard it mentioned. I might ask his school what year they do it in. 

silly_moo

Neil_Jones said:

There are a bunch of resources for the Code Club here you can work through, including some Python material (no dead parrots ):

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/codeclub

(...)

HTML, the language of web pages, is always a good starting point too, since you come into (indirect) contact with it everyday on the internet.  What you're looking at now is built in HTML (with one or two underlying other technologies to help).

Thanks, I'll check the Code Club out and will look into HTML. I totally forgot but we did HTML at school too, not that I remember much after over 20 years. 

a

silly_moo said:

a said:

In school, my friends daughter then age 7 started programming BBC MICRO:BIT - little flashing signs etc.

She is now 8 plus a few months, hopefully in the next few weeks she will be building a digital oscilloscope, if covid does not restrict travel further.

Ooh I didn't know they did coding at school, never heard it mentioned. I might ask his school what year they do it in. 

I just spoke to her father to get clarification. She is now in year 4, so was in year 3 (i passsed the math test ). They bought the bbc micro:bit last year, but Corona got in the way, but I do remember him telling me she produced a smiling face due to schoool. So far this year (2 weeks in) they are using software to make sound.

The Digital Storage Oscilloscope is a £15 ebay kit in which she will solder about 30 items. £5 for a cardioid mike, and £10 to pimp it out with a proper scope probe. The final aim is to get her to scream into the mike, watch the patterns, and annoy the parents after I leave

WaywardDriver

silly_moo said:

Neil_Jones said:

There are a bunch of resources for the Code Club here you can work through, including some Python material (no dead parrots ):

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/codeclub

(...)

HTML, the language of web pages, is always a good starting point too, since you come into (indirect) contact with it everyday on the internet.  What you're looking at now is built in HTML (with one or two underlying other technologies to help).

Thanks, I'll check the Code Club out and will look into HTML. I totally forgot but we did HTML at school too, not that I remember much after over 20 years. 

Don't disagree with learning HTML but HTML is not a programming language. If the child is interested in webpages then maybe a language that interacts with HTML.

Neil_Jones

WaywardDriver said:

silly_moo said:

Neil_Jones said:

There are a bunch of resources for the Code Club here you can work through, including some Python material (no dead parrots ):

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/codeclub

(...)

HTML, the language of web pages, is always a good starting point too, since you come into (indirect) contact with it everyday on the internet.  What you're looking at now is built in HTML (with one or two underlying other technologies to help).

Thanks, I'll check the Code Club out and will look into HTML. I totally forgot but we did HTML at school too, not that I remember much after over 20 years. 

Don't disagree with learning HTML but HTML is not a programming language. If the child is interested in webpages then maybe a language that interacts with HTML.

HTML is not "programming" as such, agreed, but it will help transition to other related technologies like Javascript, PHP and whatever else.  PHP in particular is one of the "invisible" languages of a lot of dynamic websites, but you can't see most of its work without an actual web page to display it, and there you need HTML to build it to show that output.

If you see websites with a question mark in the URL (index?page=contact for example), that is almost certainly being powered/generated by PHP.  There are other technologies but the most likely engine is PHP.  This allows websites to be build relatively quickly and in a modular fashion, for PHP you can just build a common header, a common footer, and then separate files for each page, and you just tell PHP to build the completed page on the fly.

WaywardDriver

Neil_Jones said:

WaywardDriver said:

silly_moo said:

Neil_Jones said:

There are a bunch of resources for the Code Club here you can work through, including some Python material (no dead parrots ):

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/codeclub

(...)

HTML, the language of web pages, is always a good starting point too, since you come into (indirect) contact with it everyday on the internet.  What you're looking at now is built in HTML (with one or two underlying other technologies to help).

Thanks, I'll check the Code Club out and will look into HTML. I totally forgot but we did HTML at school too, not that I remember much after over 20 years. 

Don't disagree with learning HTML but HTML is not a programming language. If the child is interested in webpages then maybe a language that interacts with HTML.

HTML is not "programming" as such, agreed, but it will help transition to other related technologies like Javascript, PHP and whatever else.  PHP in particular is one of the "invisible" languages of a lot of dynamic websites, but you can't see most of its work without an actual web page to display it, and there you need HTML to build it to show that output.

If you see websites with a question mark in the URL (index?page=contact for example), that is almost certainly being powered/generated by PHP.  There are other technologies but the most likely engine is PHP.  This allows websites to be build relatively quickly and in a modular fashion, for PHP you can just build a common header, a common footer, and then separate files for each page, and you just tell PHP to build the completed page on the fly.

Another technology which I've used is Microsoft ,NET which supports over 50 languages.
But we're getting carried away, the child is 8 years old so the important thing is not learning a language in isolation but as a solution to a project that interests him/her.