[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What do you do to get your kids to programming?
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       Ask HN: What do you do to get your kids to programming?
        
       At the beginning of the century there was a thriving web community
       doing basic HTML + CSS. If you were a "real programmer" you could
       convert your page to PHP and get into algorithms and databases. I
       know some peers who started like that, same as me. You could easily
       create a "professional level" web page at the time. Teenagers were
       building web pages for pocket money.  Nowadays, we have Medium,
       Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, ... Mostly noone needs a custom blog.
       What do kids these days to start with programming?  Since I got a
       kid I was wondering what I can do for him to show him the marvels
       of that world. Everything seems to be less accessible than anything
       from the time of my childhood. Including stuff made for that
       purpose, like RPis. What did you do to tech programming to your
       kids?
        
       Author : vletal
       Score  : 18 points
       Date   : 2021-03-14 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
       | feyman_r wrote:
       | My wife started a First Lego League team for 8+ year old kids to
       | get them into building with Legos, and programming.
       | 
       | Some other things she uses to encourage programming in the group
       | - bitsbox, code.org and Tynker (younger kids).
       | 
       | I have seen _all_ kids participate and learn with a variety of
       | these options over the past 12 months (remote works really well).
       | I 'll get more details from her later today if there's interest.
        
       | nzmsv wrote:
       | You haven't mentioned how old your kid is. My kids are 6 and 4
       | years old and enjoy Osmo Awbie and Ozobot.
        
       | tcbawo wrote:
       | It sounds like you're asking more about getting into practical
       | paid side-jobs than getting basic skills and interest level.
       | Things have kind of gone the other direction with parents willing
       | to pay to someone else to teach their kids some of these skills
       | (coding gyms, etc.), although I don't have any experience with
       | that. Maybe getting involved with something they are passionate
       | about, like mods for video games or certain open source projects
       | might be a good way to go (w/ Patreon). Or, they could do some
       | volunteer work for local businesses and work their way up to
       | billing. I know a lot of them are keen on reducing the overhead
       | of online ordering/delivery systems.
       | 
       | For teaching basic logic to kids/teens, I found this game really
       | enjoyable, especially since it's tangible and offline:
       | https://www.turingtumble.com/
        
       | mimixco wrote:
       | MakeCode Arcade is terrific. Its powerful, easy to get started,
       | free, open source, cross platform, and fun!
       | http://arcade.makecode.com
        
       | cyberbanjo wrote:
       | Automation for video games, did it for me. Hooked me on code and
       | made me realize how unfulfilling grinding up MMOs was.
        
         | vletal wrote:
         | Interesting, since it's pretty difficult task to begin with.
         | What do you do now?
        
           | cyberbanjo wrote:
           | Write PHP
        
           | vulcan01 wrote:
           | Making mods for videogames (like Minecraft mods) might be
           | more accessible/easier to start with.
        
       | tomknig wrote:
       | Our daughter is 4 years old and we are enjoying to play with
       | Cubetto [1] from time to time.
       | 
       | There is also a list on GitHub that might be interesting for you:
       | https://github.com/HollyAdele/awesome-programming-for-kids
       | 
       | [1] https://www.primotoys.com/cubetto
        
       | arkitaip wrote:
       | Creating game mods and levels is fun. Even something as basic as
       | Roblox can teach a kid the basics of developing while they have
       | lots of fun. Fortnite enables lots of level building too. Beyond
       | that, you have Unreal Engine if you really want to go all in.
        
         | ilaksh wrote:
         | My brother has been doing a class in Roblox with some kids from
         | his church. Said it was going pretty well. He had them make an
         | obstacle course. They didn't have to code from scratch but they
         | were able to follow directions to edit variables in the scripts
         | according to desired behavior. Although when asked to do that
         | apparently my nephew cheated and just copied the entire object
         | my brother had already edited the script in.
        
       | mavelikara wrote:
       | Our daughter started programing when she was 8 on MIT Scratch.
        
       | guilhas wrote:
       | I did not know what programming was until I was 18yo, and I am
       | now definetly above average. Liked legos, and how things worked.
       | My dream job was construction, bricklayer.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-14 23:02 UTC)