Developing the next generation

[NasaCow]

So, I have a nearly 7 year old daughter and she seems interested in daddy pounding on the keyboard when I am programming. I know scratch is a language for kids as well. Anyone have experince of it and can point me in a direction to have enough resources to teach it? Or should I just download it and it is all in the langauge already? Thanks!

[CharlieJV]

Not about programming, but your inquisitive kiddo might enjoy:

• gCompris
  
• Hex-a-Hop
  

gCompris simply for exploring everything in it, Hex-a-Hop for problem-solving.

I'd get a cheap Linux-enabled Chromebook and install those two apps from the Debian repository.

[TerryRitchie]

So, I have a nearly 7 year old daughter and she seems interested in daddy pounding on the keyboard when I am programming. I know scratch is a language for kids as well. Anyone have experince of it and can point me in a direction to have enough resources to teach it? Or should I just download it and it is all in the langauge already? Thanks!

Our own @RokCoder (Cliff Davies) has a scratch site you may be interested in:

https://rokcoder.com/scratch/index.html

He has done amazing things using Scratch. Your daughter may like playing a few of his games and seeing what can be done in the language.

He has tutorials too:

https://scratch.mit.edu/users/RokCoderTutorials/

[mnrvovrfc]

Trying to check this out:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/728370791/

requires me to have an account.

[CharlieJV]

So, I have a nearly 7 year old daughter and she seems interested in daddy pounding on the keyboard when I am programming. I know scratch is a language for kids as well. Anyone have experince of it and can point me in a direction to have enough resources to teach it? Or should I just download it and it is all in the langauge already? Thanks!

And she (you both) might like: https://blockly.games/

[NasaCow]

Thank you all for the lovely leads. Daddy/daughter coding time incoming haha

[RokCoder]

So, I have a nearly 7 year old daughter and she seems interested in daddy pounding on the keyboard when I am programming. I know scratch is a language for kids as well. Anyone have experince of it and can point me in a direction to have enough resources to teach it? Or should I just download it and it is all in the langauge already? Thanks!

Scratch is great for kids as it removes the hurdles to getting results from their coding. They learn all the principles and underlying logic required for coding without having to jump through hoops to get immediate results. You don't need to download anything at all - just hop over to the Scratch website, set your daughter up with an account and start coding. There's also a wonderful community feel to the site with excellent moderation making it a safe space for children to be.

So, I have a nearly 7 year old daughter and she seems interested in daddy pounding on the keyboard when I am programming. I know scratch is a language for kids as well. Anyone have experince of it and can point me in a direction to have enough resources to teach it? Or should I just download it and it is all in the langauge already? Thanks!

Our own @RokCoder (Cliff Davies) has a scratch site you may be interested in:

https://rokcoder.com/scratch/index.html

He has done amazing things using Scratch. Your daughter may like playing a few of his games and seeing what can be done in the language.

He has tutorials too:

https://scratch.mit.edu/users/RokCoderTutorials/

Thanks Terry. I learned Scratch as my children had expressed an interest in it and I wanted to be able to support them - very much like the situation you're in by the sounds of it. My children went on to set up a lunchtime Scratch club in their school and, similarly, I set up various coding clubs at libraries and schools in the area. It's incredibly fun to use and you can get far better results from it than would initially be expected. Many of my projects are done as examples to show children what Scratch is capable of. The others, simply because they were challenging and fun to make!

Trying to check this out:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/728370791/

requires me to have an account.

You need an account if you want to play multiplayer games but should be able to play fine against the AI. The reason for this is that "cloud variables" are only available to Scratchers who have accounts and have lost the "New Scratcher" status. The logic behind this is to prevent overuse and spamming of the cloud variable system. I doubt very much cloud variables were put in place for anything more than allowing simple high score leaderboards and such - basically a project can add up to ten cloud variables whose values can be read and written from any instance of the project. Using jiggery-pokery you can set a basic system up to allow these variables to relay enough data to make multiplayer games feasible. Again, the challenge is appealing!

[mnrvovrfc]

You don't need to download anything at all - just hop over to the Scratch website, set your daughter up with an account and start coding. There's also a wonderful community feel to the site with excellent moderation making it a safe space for children to be.

So you have been at it for many years, which is impressive.

The comments pages of the site, like too many other places, are sprinkled with images that I don't think would come from pre-adolescents and younger. In particular people putting their pets on animated GIF files. I don't know, it makes me chilly. So this "community" has to be approached carefully.

It could be tempting to take shortcuts to obtain artwork, animation, music, sounds, algorithms for the bad guy to move and that sort of thing, because the programmer must be able to take care of all that in a traditional programming system. I'm not a very good artist and I don't have patience for animation. I really wanted to be like the guy who had a tablet using Inkscape in the video demonstration of one of the Fedora Labs, looks as dead easy as on paper. I'd be immersed much more in doing portraits.

I could do music but some people expect chiptunes or something related to pop or rock, or classical music to play along with. I can't do any of that, I create music for myself to waste time on a hobby.