If you want to teach your kids how to code, the first thing you should care about is motivation. You shouldn't lecture your child about the developer profession or tell them how everyone will need to be able to write Python code in the future. Every parent probably understands that children are not good at long-term planning. The easiest way to encourage them to study is through some area that is close to their current hobbies. In this article, we'll show you how to spark interest in IT development, and at the end, you'll find a selection of tutorials to get you started with the basics of programming.
1. Creativity
Programming is primarily about creativity. Developers use computers and math to create new things: software that makes our lives easier, video games that help us have fun, robots that are cool on their own. It will be easy for you to teach your child to program if you ask him to implement some of his old ideas or solve some everyday problem.
Try creating an interactive cartoon, creating a mobile app, or designing a video game together. If your children are fighting over household chores, suggest writing a program that will assign responsibilities and give points for tasks completed — the first version can be a simple spreadsheet. At the end of the day, teaching kids to code is largely about instilling the right approach to problem solving.
2. Discoveries and new opportunities
Perhaps all programmers, engineers, and developers share a desire to know: “What happens if...” Children who break their toys are equally motivated to figure out how they walk and beep. This urge to experiment can and should be used if you want to teach your child how to code.
Open the cover of your home computer and show what it consists of. Disassemble and put it back together. Suggest you think about how a program that would regulate your life would work and how it could be improved. Such examples can be used to explain the basics of programming to children — functions, loops, variables, and so on.
3. Programming as a social activity
The desire to build a reputation in the eyes of their buddies is a very powerful driver for children, especially when they become teenagers. The competitive element plays an equally important role. These two factors come together in programming courses for schoolchildren: students learn new topics together, complete tasks together and compete to see who does them better.
When you send your child to programming school, you also immerse them in a party and help them make useful contacts. This is not about connections that will help you with your career (although in fact no one can know who the kid next door will become), but about making friends with children who share useful hobbies. By the way, online programming courses also work in this regard, because in this case, too, children get to know each other and communicate with each other, albeit in a virtual classroom, not in a real one.
Now, as promised at the beginning of the article, there is a selection of programs with which you can start teaching children how to program. Of course, you can buy a JavaScript or Python textbook for kids, this method is great for teenagers and high school students. If a young developer loves Minecraft, he can learn to code right in the game. Some children are immediately immersed in complex languages like C++.
However, in most cases — especially if you want to teach programming to a 6-8-year-old child — it's best to start with simple visual development environments that don't even require you to write code. The external simplicity of such programs hides a serious logic that will allow students to get close to complex abstract functions and mathematical operations.
Scratch. We have already talked about this great program et her ideological successor, Snap. Therefore, we will not dwell on all its advantages now. Let's just note that Scratch allows children to learn the basics of programming by creating their own games, interactive cartoons and other creative works. This is the best training system for programmers over six years old.
Alice. Like Scratch, Alice uses visual blocks, but the level of features is higher here. This system introduces children to 3D programming and object-oriented development concepts that are being developed, for example, in C++. Games, animated videos and other programs created in Alice can be transferred to the Java environment, so that the child comes close to “adult” programming languages.
Swift Playgrounds. If your child wants create apps, then this program is his pass to the world of mobile development. Swift is the main language for iOS developers, and Swift Playgrounds is Apple's official iPad training app. Here, the child will get to know the main teams in a playful way and undergo a series of tests in 3D labyrinths to finally learn how to develop programs with Swift.
Twine. This app, in turn, is suitable for future game designers, web developers, and screenwriters. The creators focused not on code, but on storytelling. The app teaches you how to create interactive stories by combining text and images into a complete work. Thus, the child will be able to invent their own fairy tales or design multimedia games with a branching plot.
LEGO EV3. If your child is interested in robots, the LEGO Mindstorms set, along with the free LEGO EV3 development environment, will be a great help. Using visual programming tools, he will be able to get acquainted with real robotics technologies. For older developers, it is possible to use Python and C++. Recalling the importance of socialization, we note that this platform can be used to organize an entire club of robotics enthusiasts, whose members will work together on major projects.
