Computers converge with the lives of the children in every aspect; however, most of them do not know how they work. It’s the same reason why allowing them to learn the fundamentals of coding while they are young is essential is now a must.
Through coding, children of all ages develop important artistic skills, acquire an understanding of sequence and logic, and understands the process of iteration. And this generation is lucky to experience different coding applications that grant them the freedom to collaborate and create their designs.
In no particular order, listed below are the five coding applications that are suitable and applicable for young learners.
Lightbot- One Hour Coding
Let your children be captivated and enamored with coding within minutes. Lightbot is a coding puzzle game with game mechanics that require the use of the logic of programming to answer different levels.
By clearly commanding the robot to illuminate tiles to find a solution to every level, kids improves and develops a real understanding of the conditionals, loops, and procedures; important notions to Computer Science.
Enlist your kids in a coding school such as in Code Camp where they can hone and learn their coding skills. Children can also learn to code with free online courses and programming projects.
Scratch
Source: scratch.mit.edu
Scratch is a coding application designed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) staff and students in 2003. It is one of the first coding application explicitly designed for eight to sixteen-year-olds.
Scratch is initially a multi-platform application to download, but it is now web-based and much more handy. From Scratch, kids can utilize an illustrated programming language composed of bricks that they can move to the workspace to stimulate sprites.
Different kinds of bricks create variables, trigger loops, play sounds, start interactivity, and many more. Plus, there are various resources and guides available on the Scratch website that will help young learners to get started.
Daisy-The-Dinosaur
Adding dinosaurs in a coding application is excellent. Just the fact that kids love the ideas of dinosaurs makes it a unique coding program. Thus this type of coding application is one of the outstanding coding-friendly apps for kids. It contains mini-games that educate the fundamentals of programming.
For instance, the loop-de-loop test inspires and motivates the children to use word instructions to make the dinosaur execute various movements. This coding application is not only excellent to harness knowledge about programming, but it’s also fun and interactive.
Moreover, Daisy-the-Dinosaur doesn’t appear to be technology oriented. Kodable is a simple puzzle and word game on the surface.
TinyTap
Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com
TinyTap is one of the best coding-friendly applications that lets kids to conveniently create and build fun educational games and share them with friends. This coding app provides an excellent way to cultivate their problem solving and creative thinking skills while engaging in playful and interactive games.
TinyTap might be an easy application, but it’s a powerful concept where you can combine fixed photos and images with recorded digital hotspots and audio to develop fully interactive lessons and games.
Kodable
Kodable is a coding application that is all about computer programming with love. This coding-friendly app has simple lessons that suit kids from first to fifth graders.
The basics of this application implement further excellent programming skills, but the process of the advancement through lectures stays fun. The games arrive as a sequence of challenges like heading out of a maze.
But this coding app does not remain the coding ideas very simple. Instead, this coding application includes concepts like looping and branching. Kodable also presents the ‘ifs’ and then command to suggest the concept of programming.
Furthermore, Kodable comes in both free and premium versions, along with some learning guidance for the teachers and parents.
Takeaway
In conclusion, coding or programming is all around us. Almost everything works with a distinct type of code to make it run. And even though coding may sound advanced and complicated, it is a great idea to let your children learn how to program at a very young age. Lightbot, Scratch, Daisy-the-Dinosaur, TinyTap, and Kodable are the coding-friendly applications that teach kids coding skills.