How to make kids interested in coding!
Everyone should learn how to code because it "teaches you how to think," according to Steve Jobs. There are many benefits to teaching children how to code, and this is only one of them. Children as young as five have been found to be able to understand the fundamentals of coding and to mimic the systematic thought process used in coding. As you may be aware, early exposure to coding has several advantages for children. Communication, information literacy and media literacy are just some of the 21st-century abilities that may be gained by learning how to code. With this in mind, we may discuss a few things to bear in mind while teaching our kids about coding. So, how do we start teaching children how to learn programming?
Puzzles and Games
Actually, teaching children the fundamentals of programming doesn't begin with actually teaching them how to program their own stuff. Programming relies heavily on problem-solving and logical thinking, thus it's critical that they get familiar with both of these concepts throughout this time period. If you want to assist your children develop this type of perception, expose them to puzzles, Legos, and Rubik's Cubes. This helps them in developing a knack on coding for kids; they learn systematic thinking and how one piece may combine with the other components to produce a certain thing by solving challenging puzzles and constructing structures with legos. Allowing youngsters to play creative video games is also an excellent way to introduce them to the fundamentals of coding for kids and familiarise them with the way a computer transmits orders and generates the required output. Roblox is a fantastic game that may assist in this endeavour. As a contrast to most other video games, Roblox is all about creating games and worlds, rather than focusing on a single storyline or narrative. In the Roblox Studio, users employ a coding language called Lua, which has been customised for usage by Roblox players all over the world. Roblox Studio considers users' ability to figure out and implement their own lines of code to create and control every item in the game when designing more beautiful menus. The coding process in this begins easy, but as the complexity of the code grows, students will ultimately be able to build whole scripts incorporating Lua code.
“Everyone should learn how to code because it teaches you how to think
- Steve Jobs, Apple ”
Introduce Coding Activities To Their Daily Routines
We must eventually teach them how a computer works and how a collection of instructions work together to produce a certain result. This will need some familiarity with programming languages. Learning about the binary language of a computer, as well as the programming languages we might use to transmit our instructions to the computer, is an important part of educating our children about computers. Python or another comparable programming language would be suitable for their age, but MIT Media Lab's Scratch is a good place to start for them to try out and learn. Scratch is a visual programming language and website geared on teaching youngsters how to code. Children may construct web-based projects using a block-like interface on the website. Scratch, like Roblox, offers a gamified method to learn coding for kids. However, it differs from the latter in that it is more of an instructional game than a videogame in the traditional sense. Using Scratch, kids may build interactive tales, games, and animations. Scratch is a great coding language for young children because it offers a fun interface that is reminiscent of their favourite cartoons and video games, and because it emphasises learning by doing rather than by being lectured at.
Find Them a Learning Environment
Learning the foundations of coding may be made easier for kids thanks to the wealth of internet resources available. There are several channels on YouTube that provide the best programming courses and act as a kids coding platform to cover the fundamentals of programming for kids, making it an excellent starting point for learning the fundamentals without committing to kids coding classes. Other than this, only a small number of websites are dedicated to instructing children in the art of coding. But coding classes for kids are not to be put out of the picture completely yet; at dedicated coding courses children would be able to have one-on-one chats with instructors and answer their questions easily with the help of these websites. Another benefit of using one of these websites is the ability to create 'courses' for students. This may help youngsters learn in a structured way, and this ensures that the children aren't overloaded with knowledge at the same time. When it comes to teaching programming for kids, our major objective is to instil in them a curiosity for problem solving and a love of logic. Any of the previously mentioned approaches, such as screen-free activities like constructing puzzles and legos or video games that children may play in their spare time, can be adapted for this purpose. Even if kids decide not to pursue a job in programming in the future, learning to code at this time in their development has several advantages that may lead them later in life. It is possible that the skills and information they get from coding, particularly in the STEM fields, may assist the coder kids in their future endeavours.