jillian Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 This is kind of the "it" thing right now. What resources have you found for the early elementary set for doing this satisfying at the beginning. Dh can help dd with this because he's tech-y Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 My DD loved Scratch and Storytelling Alice at your DD's age. She's now moving into HTML and scripting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 My DD loved Scratch and Storytelling Alice at your DD's age. She's now moving into HTML and scripting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohannaM Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Another thing, besides Scratch, that I discovered recently is the Cargo Bot (free) ipad app where you program a robot arm to move boxes around. Johanna Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs.Mom Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 This is a great site: http://code.org/It's a non-profit and all of the classes are free. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 I would absolutely look at Scratch. My ds10s and dd12 spend a considerable amount of time playing around on Scratch. I don't know how far a very young one will get, but it's worth a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Kodu is one that my DS really likes. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/ He also loves his Lego Mindstorms set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathnerd Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 My son's private school teaches Logo as a part of the curriculum. We teach him Scratch at home. He also programs the Lego Mindstorms which is his hobby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
La Texican Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 I bought the crystal rainforest. It's an old game, so, not cutting edge. It was for schools in 1992 for ages 7-9. It kind of doubles as a geometry game. There's a lot of messing with degrees of angles to solve the problem. You move your charachter by saying forward 200, right, forward 50, left 130. Then clicking "go". I'm not sure that it's much different than scratch, in that you make one command on one line, another on the next, another on the next, and then write end on the last line. Then click go. It's not open ended like Scratch. It's a video game. You're on a quest.they want a certain thing written on a certain line. It's not months worth of gameplay, or console level graphics. It's about on the level of the old Carmen San Diego game , as far as graphics, and the action is still frame pictures with a voiceover. I'm not sure I would recommend it because my kid said, "I thought it was going to be fun, but it ended up just being (tedious) work." The terrapin logo company that sells it also sells toy robots that you can program using the same kind of commands. I wanted a way to teach programming and electronics to open the door for robotics. I bought a subscription to eeme to get electronics supplies and lessons. The hubby's doing the electronics with our kid, and he says they're good educational lessons, definately a step up from snap circuits, and there's a lot of room to grow in it. That's electronics, not programming though. I bring it up because I bought both programs at the same time, with the same goal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
La Texican Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 My son's private school teaches Logo as a part of the curriculum. We teach him Scratch at home. He also programs the Lego Mindstorms which is his hobby. What can you do with logo next? That's what the Crystal rainforest taught. I'll definately change my reccomenddation if it leads to something cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilaclady Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 I would second or third scratch and then Alice. Both are quite accessible to kids. My dd took the free intro to programming class merrlvm offered last month and really enjoyed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jillian Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 I did download the robot iPad game. I will check into the others. Thanks so much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MamaSprout Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Khan has basic programming. The intro stuff has been okay for dd8. I think the level of difficulty could increase quickly. https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/programming Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urthmama Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 We bought Tynker (the online class) as a way to teach my then 6 year old - because she had such a desire to learn, but I had no ability to teach. She is very verbal/literary - and really enjoyed the comic book/story element. There are TONS of free programs - just with my daughter, we decided to do Tynker and I liked it quite a lot - (not affiliated with them in any way)... After that, she moved on to Scratch. I actually wrote a post on my blog awhile back about computer programming for kids with a few different options - not sure if it's okay to link...but anyway... http://erikafinn.com/easy-computer-programming-for-kids/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathnerd Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 What can you do with logo next? That's what the Crystal rainforest taught. I'll definately change my reccomenddation if it leads to something cool. I am not sure where logo would lead to next. Crystal Rainforest looks cool. What my son does at school is create a sequence of commands to accomplish things - like draw pictures etc. He learns things like navigating, moving an object, placing it in a particular spot (x,y co-ordinates), rotating the objects etc. They do it in small projects and it is very fun for him. For example, they used Logo to create a silkworm's lifecycle diagram last week after they had a science project to hatch the silkworms in the classroom. I personally like Scratch and then Java as a next step. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
La Texican Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Crystal ranforest is cool, just a little tedious. At one point you're in a maze and after you have to backtrack a few times with (forward 50) right (forward 50).. It's just that kids these days are spoiled with all their pbs kids point and click games. My kid thought parts of it were cool, but that he expected them to make it cooler. (Six yr old's review). If it comes up, and you don't mind asking, could you ask the computer teacher what else can be done with logo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Crystal ranforest is cool, just a little tedious. At one point you're in a maze and after you have to backtrack a few times with (forward 50) right (forward 50).. It's just that kids these days are spoiled with all their pbs kids point and click games. My kid thought parts of it were cool, but that he expected them to make it cooler. (Six yr old's review). If it comes up, and you don't mind asking, could you ask the computer teacher what else can be done with logo. There are some logo resources at motherboardbooks.com. Logo Adventures is aimed at 3rd grade and higher, and Computer Science Pure and Simple more at middle school. There's also a series aimed at high school and college students which is available for free online -- http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/v1-toc2.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angela Beshears Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 A friend sent me info about this: https://www.play-i.com/ I had heard of Scratch, my daughter likes that one, but haven't heard of the any of the others! We'll have to look into those. Oh, and I've heard the Hopscotch app for Ipad is good, but haven't tried it yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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