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When and how to start coding with kids

Episode #478, published Wed, Sep 25, 2024, recorded Thu, Aug 8, 2024

Do you have kids? Maybe nieces and nephews? Or maybe you work in a school environment? Maybe it's just friend's who know you're a programmer and ask about how they should go about introducing programming concepts with them. Anna-Lena Popkes is back on the show to share her research on when and how to teach kids programming. We spend the second half of the episode talking about concrete apps and toys you might consider for each age group. Plus, some of these things are fun for adults too. ;)

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Links from the show

Anna-Lena: alpopkes.com

Magical universe repo: github.com
Machine learning basics repo: github.com

PyData recording "when and how to start coding with kids": youtube.com

Robots and devices
Bee Bot: terrapinlogo.com
Cubelets: modrobotics.com
BBC Microbit: microbit.org
RaspberryPi: raspberrypi.com
Adafruit Qualia ESP32 for CircuitPython: adafruit.com
Zumi: robolink.com

Board games
Think Fun Robot Turtles Board Game: amazon.com

Visual programming:
Scratch Jr.: scratchjr.org
Scratch: scratch.org
Blocky: google.com
Microbit's Make Code: microbit.org
Code Club: codeclubworld.org

Textual programming
Code Combat: codecombat.com
Hedy: hedycode.com
Anvil: anvil.works

Coding classes / summer camps (US)
Portland Community College Summer Teen Program: pcc.edu
Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com
Episode transcripts: talkpython.fm

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