Want to teach coding to kids: 3 great free resources for you

I am getting these calls quite too often now.

Friends of mine calling me to ask if they should enroll their kids to the online learning courses offered by many companies now a days and they don’t know if its fit or suitable for them or their child or not. The TV ads are literally making parents fell that they’re missing on something if their child is not learning coding. But there’s nothing like that. In fact, in the early ages, its better that child uses computer only out of interest and not to learn something online which is not part of their studies. For those kids who are interested and their parents are not getting if they should enroll to a class or not, am providing here a list of simple and free resources which they can teach to their kids at home without paying anything to anyone.

These resources are in fact the same one which people are teaching online and charging for it :(. Ironic but its true. See teaching coding to kids is not that mandatory but its a fun activity and I believe it should be fun only

So explore these things on your own with your kids and let them have fun with computer coding without paying a dime to anyone

Scratch

Without a doubt, scratch is the leading software developed for teaching coding to kids and all the younger ones. Developed by MIT Media Lab, Scratch proves to be the best introduction to programming for anyone, for both the parent and the kids alike, read more here. One can do many things with scratch by simply just using the blocks, it does not coding by typing words, instead it uses some pre-available blocks which are to be picked and placed one after another to create a code. There are plenty many things to do from playing your own voice to even creating games which can be done with scratch.
What all is needed to learn App Inventor: A Computer/Laptop, Internet Connection
Who Can learn scratch: Any kid who can read English
Can I teach scratch to my kids myself: Yes, if you can read English 🙂
code.org, as the name suggests is perhaps the greatest resource site specially made to teach coding to the younger kids. code.org is a non-profit which is backed by many generous donors like Amazon, Facebook, Google, the Infosys Foundation, Microsoft, and many such who have not only contributed money but also their resources also to bring code.org to life. Code.org provides a very nice curriculum which can be followed to teach coding to the kids from age 4 and above very easily. Whats more interesting with code.org is that they gamification of coding with actual games that kids know about. Kids can do coding exercises with angry birds, minecraft, star wars and alike games which they’re already attached with. And it brings whole lot of fun for both parents and kids to solve these challenges. Depending upon the age of your child you can start right away with coding with him/her. Check it all here
What all is needed to learn with code.org: A Computer/Laptop, Internet Connection
Who can learn App Inventor : Anyone who can use computer, and read English
Can I teach App Inventor to my kids: Yes, if you can use computer, and read English 🙂🙂

Code Club

Code club is a non-profit from UK which aims in creating code clubs in schools and communities worldwide to spread the computer programming education among the kids. Its a very nice initiative which is connecting thousands of volunteers across the globe who are arranging code clubs in their schools or community and teach younger ones about coding. If you’re an interested parent, you can also start code club in your community / society.

The reason for including code club here, is that they’ve created very nice short lesson based projectes to teach

  1. Scratch
  2. Python Programming
  3. HTML and CSS
  4. Hardware like Raspberry Pi and related tools

So if you’ve chosen to start with scratch, you’ll find interesting projects for getting started with scratch here on code club website. These tutorials can act as guide to you as parent as well as to your kids for learning the coding

While the idea of turning your kid into a genius coder or next startup founder is very good, we should not forget the overall development of our child. All above mentioned sites are 100% free to use and explore coding for anyone who is willing to learn. Use them as much as you want and explore the world of coding with kids