Coding for Kids

[bradjenkins]

Hi All, I have a 6 year old daughter. I hate to sound like a pushy parent, but I've heard that coding in the new skill for kids' future.
Is 6 too young to get started? What's the best way to learn at that age?

Appreciate any guidance!

[Soupspoon]

If you aren't being pushy (keep it fun and something the kid wants to try, not a chore-to-be-done because "you must learn how to code!") then six isn't too young.

I'd avoid anything that needs loads of typing (at least until/unless typing is mature enough to be not frustrating when needing to be accurate and free of typos, and then there's still "thinkos" like missing vital punctuation/brackets) but you might look into Scratch on (or off?) the Raspberry Pi which is quite powerful, with the ability to read/write data inputs/outputs and even (however you see it) process forking or OO:



There are other such building-block languages (literally?) and platforms (I've yet to get my hands on a BBC Micro:bit but if you can then it's maybe worth a look), but the other opportunities in a Pi seem to make it versatile enough that what little you spend on it won't go to waste if you daughter can't/won't code yet/ever, and 'forces' you to turn it into a media-server or something else for which there's various pre-prepared builds for.

[Yakk]

There are also a few board games that are pre-coding, like Robot Turtles. We don't know if they work.

[frenchdev]

Hi, I also have a six year old child.
He liked the coding Google Doodle https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-50-years-of-kids-coding
There are several websites that offer similar things to learn the basics of coding