Best tools\methods to teach programming to Kids.
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So I have a 5 year old nephew who I am very fond of. Quite frequently I ponder about his education and feel that he should be made to fall in love with programming. Now , where should I start?
I am not sure it counts as programming, but have you considered buying him a Bigtrak?
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Agreed. I seem to remember a study recently that advocated no screen time of any kind for children under 2 (no TV, no video games, no computer), and small amounts with strict rationing after that.
Software Zen:
delete this;I read about that too - it'll be hard to enforce in today's always-online world.
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SledgeHammer01 wrote:
different career
Is it indeed a career at all?
Peter Wasser Art is making something out of nothing and selling it. Frank Zappa
I've been getting paid for it for 32 years now, so yeah... it's a career.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
So I have a 5 year old nephew who I am very fond of. Quite frequently I ponder about his education and feel that he should be made to fall in love with programming. Now , where should I start?
Chess.
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So I have a 5 year old nephew who I am very fond of. Quite frequently I ponder about his education and feel that he should be made to fall in love with programming. Now , where should I start?
http://smallbasic.com/[^] 5 is a bit young, but Microsoft SmallBasic is an easy to use language for kids. The reference material is good, it starts with really simple examples (1-3 lines). Then it analyzes the program, and finally it describes the concept. For those of you with education backgrounds this is a recommended way to introduce math concepts to young minds, moving from concrete to abstract. My 10 year old son wanted to start programming, so I've been letting him pretty much self guide himself through the material. My 7 year old daughter felt left out, and has been working away too. Neither have had any issues with the material. It also is a kick for me, having started using Basic on an old Timex Sinclair that plugged into the TV.
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So I have a 5 year old nephew who I am very fond of. Quite frequently I ponder about his education and feel that he should be made to fall in love with programming. Now , where should I start?
I started at about 6, on a ZX81 - later a C64. My brother taught me the basics (he was about 16) The thing that got me hooked may have been interacting with a command line interface, although I remember being very excited about typing a few lines of code and making the computer do what I wanted it to. I've found over the years that I enjoy programming less due to the level of abstraction between myself and the hardware. Compiling down to IL etc puts me off :-)
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So I have a 5 year old nephew who I am very fond of. Quite frequently I ponder about his education and feel that he should be made to fall in love with programming. Now , where should I start?
I like this game on my Android phone, I'm sure you can find something similar for other devices. It's just a game... not programming, but it is programming, but it's just a game... he'll have fun and learn to break a problem down into steps. IMO, that is an important skill even for a 5 year old. http://armorgames.com/play/6061/light-bot-20/[^] Many kids find themselves overwhelmed by the big picture when facing something complicated, and they panic, choke, and fail to perform. I train people to fly model airplanes/helicopters, and while kids typically excel on the physical side of that, they often fail miserably at the mental side, failing to understand the relationship between one airplane and another one, failing to understand constant forward motion, failing to plan ahead, failing to fail with grace! That's another thing kids need more exposure to these days, failure. I know a lot of kids who just can't deal with it... when I take control of the airplane because they messed up (or god-forbid we crash it), they have an emotional break-down, and rather than seeing it as a learning opportunity, they don't understand what happened because they've never been allowed to fail before and they've never been corrected. Lightbot will help develop some of those skills... you might also consider having him learn something like model airplane flying, or golf. (Golf is specifically designed to test how you deal with frustration) As one other person said, I don't think 5 years old is a great age to be stuck inside learning math and logic, but learning the basics of problem deconstruction and social skills will help with the future when he can learn that stuff. Model airplanes are a great way to do that, and it's a nerdy thing - most clubs are very social (by definition) and welcoming and it's a wholesome hobby which teaches engineering and gets kids off the machine and out in the real world, so see if you can find a club with a training program... Arvada Associated Modelers Training Program[^]
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SalCon wrote:
Quite frequently I...feel that he should be made to fall in love with programming.
Big mistake on your part. Making it available is one thing, but making someone like it is completely different, not to mention outright wrong.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"Show me a community that obeys the Ten Commandments and I'll show you a less crowded prison system." - Anonymous
I agree ...it is *wrong* to force feed ...but we programmers are interested in passing on our art. It's natural but should be quite tempered. My 4 1/2 yr old already told me, "Daddy, I want to program a game." That could be simply regurgitating what he has heard me say. But he understands just by looking at my screen whether I am reading an article or writing code. That is smart, IMO ...and I believe he has an eye for it. He has a love for the game MineCraft for which one can write addins using Java. I don't know Java per se (although it should be a relatively easy transition since I am a C# dev), but I think that if he and I learned how to write addins for MineCraft together, not only would he learn the language, I could also judge his capacity for the art and whether the interest is temporary or not.
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Kodu helps children with critical thinking, breaking a complex goal into manageable steps, and iterate on the design process – an approach applicable to all academic subjects, business and personal relationships Oh good grief. The ignorance of child development is appalling.
SalCon wrote:
So I have a 5 year old nephew who I am very fond of. Quite frequently I ponder about his education and feel that he should be made to fall in love with programming.
First of all, you should wait another 5 years or so. Second, this is a time for developing the physical body, fine motor control, artistic abilities, social skills, spending time outdoors, , etc., not sitting in front of a computer! All of which, by the way, has been shown, even in mainstream studies, to have direct and positive influence on brain development. Argh! Yes, I feel very strongly about this subject, I don't particularly care about the counter-views that promote introducing technology to young children, they are, quite simply, WRONG. Disagree if you will, but I will not be swayed. Marc
My Blog
The Relationship Oriented Programming IDE
Melody's Amazon Herb SiteNot all children require the same type of management: 30 minutes doing this, 30 minutes doing that, etc. My son is very good at actually managing his own time ...I observe and step in to correct issues. While I agree with what you say (nearly all of it ;) ), preventing a child from having access to an interest could be just a detrimental to development as allowing too much access. It's all about balance. His mind absorbs so much in such a short time it truly is amazing. He simply doesn't require the monitoring to make him go outside, be active, learn to read and write, etc. He's learning to read ...being on the computer, at school, and from his parents. He's learning art and creativity both on the computer and by physically drawing; learning to write both on the computer and by hand. The real issue here that everyone is going to pick at is the OP's desire to force the art of programming on the nephew. I admire the desire to "teach" ...but not forcing the skill set.
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Why not instead see whether he's interested in it and has the right mindset for it? There's an indie game I picked up on Steam a while back called SpaceChem, which is essentially a visual programming game, where you build machines to construct certain types of molecules... It might be a little too advanced for a 5-year-old, though... Not sure, as I tend to avoid micro-humans :)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
I agree ...it is *wrong* to force feed ...but we programmers are interested in passing on our art. It's natural but should be quite tempered. My 4 1/2 yr old already told me, "Daddy, I want to program a game." That could be simply regurgitating what he has heard me say. But he understands just by looking at my screen whether I am reading an article or writing code. That is smart, IMO ...and I believe he has an eye for it. He has a love for the game MineCraft for which one can write addins using Java. I don't know Java per se (although it should be a relatively easy transition since I am a C# dev), but I think that if he and I learned how to write addins for MineCraft together, not only would he learn the language, I could also judge his capacity for the art and whether the interest is temporary or not.
You said exactly what I did, only in a bit more detail.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"Show me a community that obeys the Ten Commandments and I'll show you a less crowded prison system." - Anonymous
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For a 5 year old Kodu may still be a bit much but I have seen parents working with kids that age to create fun games together. This was done having the child "design" the game while the parent kodes it and then having them both playtest the result. Because the edit/run cycle in Kodu is so short it lends itself well to this kind of iterative approach and can keep short attention spans from wandering. Younger kids also seem to enjoy the world creation aspect of Kodu also. Yes, I work at Microsoft on Kodu. It's been the greatest project I've ever worked on. :)
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So I have a 5 year old nephew who I am very fond of. Quite frequently I ponder about his education and feel that he should be made to fall in love with programming. Now , where should I start?
At 5 years old the child should be learning to read. When your nephew is older, maybe 6th to 9th grade, you can offer to help teach programming. If the child is not interested, then the age is not important because the child will not learn what he is not interested in. Here is a link to an article about teaching Basic. http://canrightonsoftwareandprogramming.blogspot.com/2012/04/learning-to-program-with-basic.html[^]
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I've been getting paid for it for 32 years now, so yeah... it's a career.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Natural Curiosity, QBasic "compiler" and the related help file. :)
CPallini wrote:
You cannot argue with agile people so just take the extreme approach and shoot him. :Smile: