Teaching functional programming to kids

I think we programmers become so used to thinking about things abstractly that we forget the metaphors we were using when we first learned to program. When I write C I'm often thinking about how the operation changes memory locations and registers, but I barely knew those when I started.<p>This topic is also very interesting to me because my wife has shown an interest in programming which I'd like to nurture, but we have communication problems because I regularly use terms she doesn't fully understand yet and it is hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone just starting out.

This is great! although I do have a few comments. Looks like the OP has the makings of a fun children's book on his hands. My only qualm though is the Star Belly Sneetch Machine spits out Sneetches with star's on their bellies.<p>Probably a more functional idiom would be a Sneetch goes into the machine and spits out a Sneetch with the a star on his belly, whilst the original Sneetch is shuffled off somewhere or parts ways.