MiriamTocino
Coding & Teaching

19 May 2015

Learn to Code during Summer Break

Online Resources for Children

My mother works as a teacher at an elementary school in Spain. Last week she asked me about some online resources where her 10 years-old students could learn to code during their summer break. I collected some of them, mostly recommended by my colleagues at work. Her students are Spanish and that’s why you will see information about which one is also offered in this language, apart from English ☺.

She also wanted to inspire her students by showing them everything what you can do if you learn to code. For that I recommended her the following video, which presents all kinds of people working in different industries and makes it easier for children to get identified by someone among them.

(Click on the image to start watching)

Hour of Code

• Age range: 4+ until 10+
• Languages: English, Spanish
• Platforms: Windows, Mac

For those of you who still doesn’t know about it, the ‘Hour of Code’ is an initiative by Computer Science Education Week and Code.org to introduce millions of students to one hour of computer science and computer programming.

You can check here their diverse collection of courses.

Lightbot

• Age range: 4 to 8 / 9 and Up
• Languages: English, Spanish
• Platforms: Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle

Lightbot offers an easy way for kids to learn concepts like loops, if-then statements and the like without typing or coding. They will be asked to solve puzzles using programming logic.

Hackety Hack

• Age range: 13 and Up
• Languages: English
• Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

Hackety Hack is a free program that can teach you how to make games, applications and more and share those programs with your friends. With Hackety Hack, you’ll learn the Ruby programming language. Ruby is used for all kinds of programs, including desktop applications and websites.

You can also check out what other people are doing with Hackety Hack.

Codecombat

• Age range: 9 and Up
• Languages: English
• Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

CodeCombat is an online game that teaches programming. Students write code in real programming languages. No experience required!

» More information for teachers

Sonic Pi

• Age range: 7 and Up
• Languages: English, Spanish
• Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

Sonic Pi engages students in music coding within the classrooms. A free live coding synth for everyone originally designed to support computing and music lessons within schools. Use code to compose and perform in classical and contemporary styles.

(Click on the image to start watching)

Scratch

• Age range: 8 to 16
• Languages: English, Spanish
• Platforms: Windows, Mac

Scratch is a programming language and an online community where children can program and share interactive media such as stories, games, and animation with people from all over the world. As children create with Scratch, they learn to think creatively, work collaboratively, and reason systematically.

» More information for teachers

» More information for parents

Check out this inspiring talk about Scratch from Mitch Resnick Let’s teach kids to code, about how kids can do more than just “read” new technologies — but also create them.

(Click on the image to start watching)