Learning to Program Empowers Kids (and It’s Easier Than You Think!)

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Remember how great MaKey MaKey was for confidence & innovative thinking? MaKey MaKey gave us the idea of programming for kids, to make our own game using Scratch.

Scratch is a website from MIT specifically for kids. Kids can program stories, games, and animation. And, it’s so much easier than you might think!

Programming for Kids

scratch tutorial

Watch a Scratch Tutorial

It’s frustrating to try to figure out Scratch without some assistance. I highly recommend starting with a tutorial.

Scratch offers a Step-by-Step tutorial.

JJ learned a lot from tutorials on YouTube, also.

She watched the tutorial on my big computer and implemented what she learned on the laptop. (If you don’t have two computers, just open up two windows on one computer.)

scratch step by step tutorial

Experiment, Play, Invent

Once a kid gets the hang of the programming basics, he or she will feel confident to start building new animations and stories. Allow for lots of play and invention time.

Another fun thing is you can see what other kids have created.

When he or she is ready, I recommend watching a few more tutorials to learn new skills. There are lots on YouTube.

Learn to Program with Scratch

Feeling Proud

I love watching how proud JJ feels of herself. So far she’s made silly games and stories. No matter what, she knows that she can learn something hard. That’s what I want her to know.

We want to give our kids opportunities to learn and succeed. That’s empowering.

This is one of those opportunities.

 

see also: Coding Apps for Kids and 40 classes, games, websites, and apps for kids to learn to code

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3 Comments

  1. Scratch is definitely a great learning tool to teach coding for kids. With the help of this tool we can educate kids about the fundamentals of coding at an early stage. This can be a perfect foundation of kids to learn basic to advance of coding in a fun way. TechyKids Canada aim to provide excellent training of tech based courses & programs which makes learning of coding for kids a lot more interactive. Kids under the guidance of experienced teachers can create their own apps & games. Thanks for sharing such a interesting learning tool for kids.

  2. This is amazing! Most people wouldn’t even think of getting kids into programming. This is a fantastic way to change that view and give children the opportunity to start preparing for and building their future early. Just awesome!

  3. My 9-year-old son started learning Scratch with a group of his friends. We hired a computer wiz high school student to teach them and they are loving it!