Programming, says Scratch Jr., is the new literacy. It is a key word in education and beyond. The focus now is on integrating computer lessons into elementary schools, and indeed, several schools around the world have begun teaching children the basics of programming.
One of the great things about programming is that when kids learn to code, they also pick up some of the other skills that come with it. Educators have a name for this learning phenomenon: incidental learning.
For example, coding games and exercises are inherently complex and often require collaboration and teamwork. When children work together to debug code and find solutions to their programming problems, they not only develop programming skills (which are intentionally targeted skills), but also (accidentally) many other fundamental skills, including computer solutions. Problems, critical thinking, strategic thinking, systems thinking, logical thinking, design thinking and more.
In fact, games and programming classes are not only about advanced technical skills, but also about the development of children's psychosocial systems. The more children work together and do programming, the greater their resilience, inspiration and perseverance. Programming also encourages children's curiosity, creativity, and independent learning.
Over the past few years, I have reviewed and shared with various educators and teachers a variety of coding educational resources, including coding websites, coding apps, coding books, and more.
In today's post, I've added a collection of websites to help kids and students learn programming in a fun way. Students have access to interactive and fun games covering a wide range of coding topics, from basic to written, using programming languages such as Python or JavaScript.
Children, regardless of their level of experience, will find this material helpful. In fact, kids don't even need programming knowledge to start playing. Contains video courses, tutorials, and guides to help kids code games.
Codables helps kids learn to code through interactive games and fun activities. As a teacher, you can easily create classes for your students in Codable and invite students to participate. I detailed this process in my Codeable Review for Teachers . From the Teacher Dashboard, you can access pre-scheduled coding lessons, take courses, track and monitor student progress.
After being introduced to their coding concepts, students can access a coding game to test the skills they are learning. Codable offers three main games, namely Smeeborg (for kids), Asteroidia (intermediate) and Bug Word (advanced). Students can further integrate the coding knowledge gained in these lessons and games using coding projects.
There are three main projects that students can use to apply their programming skills: Fuzz Builder, Maze Maker, and Game Designer. Codable also offers Hour of Code, which allows students to do computer science for an hour at their own pace, anytime.
Scratch is a coding platform that teaches kids various coding skills and helps them create games, animations, digital stories and more with these skills. While Scratch is designed specifically for children ages 8 to 16, Scratch's resources and coding activities can be used by anyone with an interest in computer science. Includes Scratch Junior for ages 5-7, a simplified version of Scratch.
The Scratch Ideas page offers a variety of activities where students can use Scratch to create various creations. These activities include: animating names, composing music, composing stories, creating chases, animating characters, animating adventure games, creating talking animations, recording voices, animating sprites, and more. For example, in Imagine a World, students use Scratch to create the world they imagine. You can talk to animals, people can fly and so on.
There is also a dedicated app that allows students to create and save their projects without an internet connection. This app is available for free for Windows 10+, Android 6.0+, Mac App Store and ChromeOS.
Minecraft helps kids learn to code through block games and activities. The educational edition of Minecraft offers many features designed specifically for teachers and students.
Minecraft comes with over 600 synced lessons by default, including the ability for teachers to write their own coding lessons. In addition, Minecraft Education provides support materials for using the coding and programming curriculum that covers history, STEM, the language industry, space exploration, and more.
Minecraft Education allows teachers to run coding lessons in their schools and classrooms. All they need to do is set up an educational version of Minecraft, choose a lesson plan from the text library, and then start teaching code lessons in their class. There are many resources available to help teachers integrate computer science lessons into their classrooms, including video tutorials and tutorials, some of which are available for free. However, learning Minecraft is not free, it offers different pricing plans.
Coding Park helps kids learn programming and computer science through fun video games. It also offers a variety of educational resources, including standard lesson plans for elementary students.
Teachers can organize their classes and host online coding workshops, invite students to participate and track their progress in real time. Coding Park also offers one-on-one online training. Coding Park has three pricing plans: Family ($29.90/year), Academic ($149.99/year), School (Request a Quote).
Codecombat teaches children how to code in a playful way. This game is recommended for kids ages 9+ who are just starting to learn programming. No prior technical knowledge is required. Through games, students can learn to write in two major programming languages: Python and JavaScript.
The CodeCombat Resource Center offers a variety of educational resources for teachers, including lesson plans, assignments, labs, printed manuals, and more. Teachers can easily organize their classes and invite students to join using a class code. Teachers can use the dashboard to access class statistics and student progress reports. CodeCombat offers various pricing options.
Google Blockchain Games introduces children to computer programming and programming through a variety of games. There are puzzle games that help children learn the shapes of blocks and how to connect them, board games introduce children to the concept of loop and conditional coding, bird games develop children's knowledge, and turtle games promote in-depth learning for children. Cycle oriented experience, movie games introduce kids to math equations, teach kids how to use math to bring movies to life, music games teach kids how to use features to compose music, pond tutor games, programming language for kids specifically , by introducing JavaScript Text and finally a pool game that teaches children to block and use JavaScript in the Smart Duck program.
Code Monkey is another great platform that offers coding games to teach kids how to program computers. It provides extensive resources from the K-8 curriculum to get kids of all grades and skill levels involved in learning to code in real programming languages.
In addition to accessing pre-installed courses and activities, teachers can also create their own classes and manage their students' programming progress. While students are playing and taking coding lessons, teachers use an automated scoring system and report analysis to track student progress and provide real-time support and feedback. Code Monkey offers two main plans, the Teacher Package and the Parent Package, each with its own price.
Ease All Kittens is an interactive coding game for kids ages 7 to 13. This game is designed to teach children the following programming languages: HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The game is web based and does not require any software download.
Ease All Kittens also offers over 5 hours of engaging lesson plans on topics such as cybersecurity, cybersecurity, online etiquette, fake news, the environment, and entrepreneurship. The first two levels of Clear All Kittens are free, so a premium membership is required to access additional features and content.
Kidlow Coding provides fun interactive games that help kids learn the basics of coding and coding. There are over 50 games dedicated to various programming concepts. There are games for learning the basics of coding, games for learning the concepts of sequencing, games for learning loops, debugging, functions, and more.
By playing this software game, children can develop the following skills: recognize patterns, arrange actions in a logical order, solve problems, think logically and much more. The game is available as an app for iOS, Android and Amazon Appstore.
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