Angie Chang from Hackbright Academy has a great post detailing 6 things parents can do to help girls learn to code and thing programmatically.
Hackbright Academy serves post baccalaureate women learning to code and become software engineers, but what about the girls?
Here are some ideas for cultivating programmatic thinking in younger girls:
Everyday Childhood Encouragement of Experimentation and STEM Discovery!
Here are 6 things you can do right now to help your children become more resilient as future innovators and leaders:
- Get a magazine subscription to Scientific American, Wired or Sky & Telescope (for future astronomers!). With your child, Google new terms and concepts together. As a parent, you have the opportunity to nurture positive gender stereotypes.
- Make “11 Experiments That Failed”, “Rosie Revere, Engineer”, “When I Grow Up”, “The Paper Bag Princess”, and “Career Day” your coffee table books for growing young minds to peruse.
- Read up on Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s Fixed vs. Growth Mindset concept to set up your child for success by fine-tuning her internal monologue around failure and growth.
- Leave some crayons next to a copy of “LadyAda’s E for is for Electronics” coloring book from Adafruit Industries. Pro tip: bookmark the “young engineers” section of the website for intro to electronics kits and circuit plushies for aspiring young engineers!
- Toys are an easy win for future inventors – Toward The Stars can recommend some toys like littleBits (electronic Legos), GoldieBlox (construction toys/books) and Roominate (imagine dollhouses with working circuits and fans!) to start.
- Join the Girl Scouts! Explore the requirements for Girl Scout badges for STEM proficiency by completing projects for “Science and Technology” badges and “Innovation” badges!
Angie,
The NCWIT K-12 Alliance has a new resource on this: Top 10 Ways Families Can Encourage Girls Interest in Computing. http://www.ncwit.org/resources/top-10-ways-families-can-encourage-girls-interest-computing/top-10-ways-families-can
Many similar suggestions!
Cheers,
Ruthe