maybe let them start with something like www.hascanvas.com, its a small set of commands, and they would immediately see the results of what they do. unfortunately it doesnt have an intelli-sense like thing, which i would find very helpfull especially for programming beginners. if you sit there with them, you could easily explain concepts like loops, recursion etc. there is also a framework for java, that lets kids draw stuff by commands, i started with that back when i was younger. unfortunately i forgot the name of it.