8 Programming Games that Focus on Teaching Kids to Code

Over the last few months, you might have been wondering for a moment “What’s with all this hype about getting your kids to learn how to code. It is important to have at the back of your mind that once kids are introduced to coding, they in-turn gain a wider understanding of how the digital economy evolves and work. 

Information and Digital technology are currently recognized as a big proportion of many children as they are now used to working and playing of games on smartphones and are surrounded by robots, websites, video games among others. The drive behind these technologies is regarded as software or programs that are specifically developed by coding.  Just like going to school to learn chemistry, physics and biology, it’s necessary that your kids learn and understand the building recipe of life, and that is coding.

Learning programming is very educational and fun. Not only will your children learn how to teach another person, it will also give them the chance of being unique and desirable among their other peers.  Coding programs will help your children understand how others think about a problem and equally help them realize several ways of solving perceived problems. Programming, in our today’s world is regarded as one of the most valuable skills you can teach your children in these modern periods, whether for career pursue or just to stretch their brains in order for them to create something awesome with coding. 

Once your children possess a unique skill that many of its other peers lack – skills that include the ability to make programs and to code, your children get an instant desirable appearance in the eye of many potential admission offices and colleges. When applying for any type of job or an internship, coding also make your children exceptionally different from others, thus giving your kids a higher chance of getting selected. 

Another important benefit of learning how to code is that the basic understanding of programming can help transform the way your children interact with digital technologies, the way they use digital technology as well as opening their minds to the infinite possibilities of knowing and learning how to code.

Specifically, logic thinking is a big requirement for coding, as its entails formulation of procedures in order to develop a desirable outcome.  Coding also involve the use of selection, expression, conditional, iteration and many other logical sentences and statements.

With respect to mathematics, coding has helped a lot of students to learn computing and sequential thinking, most especially on how to strategize formulas that can be applied to mathematical problems. This has resulted in finding quicker solutions for several mathematical problems. On the other hand, coding is also significant as it assists students in recognizing data patterns and equally help them to behave similarly to the way a computer systematically behaves. Thus, over time results in a better performance in reading and in mathematics.

The importance and the continuing pervasiveness of digital technology would in the next couple of years, require a lot of programmers and workers with the coding ability. It is envisaged that writing programs will over time start paying off in the nearest future, and many non-programming activities that still require the use of computers would require a little knowledge of coding. Additionally, while your kids learn how to code, they tend to learn many other future skills that include creativity, communication, collaboration, persistence, satisfaction among others. 

There are numerous online packages guide for children and educators that are interested in coding. This online guide ranges from basic courses for a rookie coder to the teacher’s curriculum, most importantly for college teachers who want to integrate coding into computer science.  Through these courses and platforms that include the ScratchEd program, CodeCombat, Mobile CSP,  and the Hour of Code at Code.org – all of which are very useful for getting your children acquainted with coding or programming activities will help them in writing simple programs that can build simple games.  One unique platform that incentivized students is the CodingGame.  Through this platform, your children will be able to solve programming exercise and level up in the process of learning and solving coding programs. The exercises given also has pleasant visual components that enable your children to be engaged through the session.

Introducing your children to computer programming can be quite challenging, especially for those that aren’t familiar with the basis of coding. However, in the last couple of years, software, guides and apps have been developed to make the subject of computer coding easier to understand for new learners.  Here are a few resources that parents can share with their children:

The popular Google’s made with Code project was developed with a mission to encourage the female genders to pursue a career in computer science. The Code project was made easy to follow, and if your children are new to coding, there are activities for both beginners and intermediate coders. Additionally, there are even more tutorials in the Code Projects section, most of which are released periodically.

This is an initiative by Code.org. It provides a one-hour self guided tutorial for students, thereby giving them an exposure to knowing more about coding. The tutorials are available and free for any grade levels.

This is a program that introduces gaming as a method to teach children how to code. The game based coding program encourage beginners around the age of 9 to understand coding through exploring. This program equally offers a free one-to-three hours resource hub and introductory courses for students.

This is recognized as a national non-profit organization, founded by technology entrepreneur Hadi Partovi.  The organization promotes access to coding education and offers free-in person workshops for educators in level K-12. It equally offers online tutorials and training session.  On the organization’s platform, the courses for K-5 students takes up to eight hours to compete, and  provides lesson and curriculum guide.  At the K-5 level, students or educators learn and understand how to teach the fundamentals of computer science as a stand alone course. However, there’s no fee charge for attendance.

This program was developed by Harvard education researchers.  It has a free and a downloadable guide for k-12 level teachers and students for creative computing. The seven unit curriculum under the SrcratchEd program was developed to help students with the development of interactive media based projects.

This program is a fun, instinctive suite of games that allows easy accessibility for children to learn the basic computational thinking and programming skills of coding.  Tynker’s Hour of Code Free Activities section  is an important starting point to learn coding. In addition, it is also required that as a parent, you check the parent section for tips and ideas before getting started.

The Khan Academy introduces numerous fascinating coding concepts for your children. From the basis of learning computer animation and programs to even learning a more complex computer oriented science subjects, the tutorials by Khan Academy are the perfect jump starts for beginner and curious students or educators. You can get your children started by checking out teaching kids programming with Khan Academy.

The insightful resources from the common sense media provides reviews of popular programming tools for your children. All of these reviews on programming tools are hinged for ease of use, the quality and engagements by teachers and students. Your children can, however, acquire  knowledge through their featured graphite platform.

If you are just getting your children started on the coding journey, above are the needed tips and resources that can set them off their feet. Furthermore, learning how to code empowers your children to do many things you won’t think they would have been able to do. Some of these things include building of websites, becoming a career coder, becoming a technology entrepreneur among others.  Likewise, coding will assist your children to understand the digital technology that is currently shaping the entire world. Knowledge on how coding and software works is very valuable to any person, in any walk of life.