I’ve been gathering the best resources to teach children & teens programming — books, environments, apps, courseware and games.
These resources are meant for teachers and parents who want to have their children fall in love with computers and see the magic of programming.
I’m staying away from philosophical debates of whether kids should learn to program, when they should start and other such topics. I know this — I fell in love with computers in 3rd grade (a beautiful ZX Spectrum), and I want to share the joy of programming with others.
I’ve chosen in this list to be quite comprehensive in listing all resources — but also choosy to restricting this to things I found useful & of high quality.
I’ve also started this list with my own opinionated picks on what kind of material from the large list of resources may be suitable for children with different interests and at different points in their learning.
Sharing this broadly, do let me know what else I can add to this list.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
They really did their homework on this list.