Has anybody considered the idea of stealth teaching young kids rather than forcing them to memorize things? Imagine that instead of watching useless cartoons kids where playing games like this (robomind) and or dragon box. Maybe throw in some strategy games that tell accurate history of the world and some economy games. I just feel like this would be extremely effective in teaching younger minds.
Another nice one for kids ...
<a href="http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/" rel="nofollow">http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/</a><p>VERY visually interesting and easy to make things happen<p>Only runs on xbox and windows
I tried to teach my nephew to code with python. He is 7. It didnt stick on the first attempt. However when I showed him how to use a for loop, he printed a multiplication table, turned around to his mom and exclaimed 'homework done' ! :)
As other comments have mentioned, Scratch is great for younger children. I've had some success teaching basic Scratch concepts to 5 year olds, although they vary a lot in willingness to play with it. If nothing else, showing them the cool set of sprites and showing them how to make fun backgrounds will keep them entertained enough to start introducing programming concepts.<p>It helped that I was working with a group, so the kids having more trouble could see the neat things some of the others were doing to get them motivated.<p>By 7, they should be able to work with pretty much all the fundamental tools in Scratch and you can start introducing them to higher order constructs.<p>I've found that for young kids the social aspect can be very motivating. If she has friends of a similar age, get them all started on it and they'll soon be showing each other what they come up with. If that doesn't work, then you provide the social reinforcement :)
There are two very nice programs on the iPad which my 4yo likes:<p>Move the Turtle
<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/move-turtle.-programming-for/id509013878?mt=8" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/move-turtle.-programming-for/...</a> ($2.99)<p>Similar to the Logo programming language another commenter mentions. Starts simple, but goes into loop solutions a little too quick.<p>Cargo Bot (free!)
<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cargo-bot/id519690804?mt=8" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cargo-bot/id519690804?mt=8</a><p>Cargo Bot is much more visual, little or no text, but I think they dive into recursion much too fast (for 3 star solutions that is).<p>Bee Bot (free!)
<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bee-bot/id500131639?mt=8" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bee-bot/id500131639?mt=8</a><p>Just discovered, also for the really little ones. No comments yet.
I believe the right mental model is the first step towards understanding coding or computers. The easiest way to start for a kid might be with something that interests them - like creating shapes/graphics.
(I am grateful for my school introducing me to programming via logo when I was nine)<p>I've been at it 2 weeks now trying to teach my grandma how a computer works. She now understands how a processor works, what is a software program, etc.<p>I made my grandma dictate code to make me dance giving her exactly 4 commands (moves) I could take (I am a 2-bit processor ;) ). We had fun! Ha. So she coded. No computers.
I could also explain processor speed, n-bit processors, different instruction sets, instructions that need operands, etc. Of course I used none of these words.
I've been trying to get my lad in to Scratch.<p>The OP's app looks to be like Logo Turtle which was taught to me as a child in the UK c.1984. Indeed IIRC most schools in my area had this and some [later?] had a real-life 'turtle' that you could move around (connected by a long Centronics cable I think).<p>There was a toy called Big Track (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035IZ85G?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=B0035IZ85G&linkCode=shr&tag=flapjacktasti-20&qid=1349389623&sr=8-1&keywords=big+track" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035IZ85G?ie=UTF8&camp...</a> : aff) that allowed small sets of serialised instructions to be entered. Robosapiens are probably the modern equivalent.
The first comedy response to this article: <a href="http://betabeat.com/2012/10/unsuspecting-5-year-old-girl-being-stealth-prepared-for-a-grueling-life-of-coding/" rel="nofollow">http://betabeat.com/2012/10/unsuspecting-5-year-old-girl-bei...</a>
I remember we had that turtle system (logo?) in third grade.<p>I never once realized I was programming! I thought it was just a dumb game to make a turtle move. And I remember always wishing I could learn how to program a computer at that age. If they had told me that's what I was doing I probably would have been more interested.<p>I guess the moral is to not abstract too much of the system from the child. Maybe they want to see variables, and print statements.
I think visual feedback is very important in teaching kids how to program. Several months ago, I installed Alice (v2.2) (<a href="http://www.alice.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.alice.org/</a>) for my kids to explore. They generally enjoyed it but the UI was a bit cumbersome in some respects. Looks like there's a new version that seems worth upgrading to.
Neat! Both my daughters, four and six, have been asking me when they can program like daddy :).<p>The six-year-old can read, but the four-year-old cannot. I'm looking forward to trying this later with the older daughter.
Why would you want to force something on a child that young? Why would you want to basically indoctrinate your child with something?<p>How about, instead, developing reasoning skills and the ability to make their own decisions and then actually letting them decide what they want to do? Crazy, I know!