Teaching coding to your children is a great idea. Research has indicated that coding allows kids to develop cognitive abilities, enhance critical thinking, and improve problem-solving skills. Thus, introducing coding to children is quite beneficial for them. But, what platforms to use for this purpose? That’s what we’re here for. We’re sharing some of the best coding platforms for children to use for learning coding. Let’s check them out below:
The mentioned platforms may or may not be designed for offline use. It is advisable to ensure you have a stable and fast internet. If haven’t already, you can look up on the web for ‘internet near me,’ and choose from the available options.
Scratch Jr.
Managed by the Scratch Foundation, a non-profit organization, Scratch Jr. is a project that provides coding education for children. It operates on a similar model as Scratch and provides exposure to interactive coding exercises.
For starters, it uses characters that interact with the kids while teaching. It uses various modes of teaching such as drag-and-drop puzzles, movement-based exercises (kids select the movement of objects to repeat functions), storytelling, and more.
In other words, Scratch Jr. is a creative upgrade to the existing Scratch as it allows the kids to customize the characters, make recordings, add text, and more. The gamification element allows children to learn coding while playing games.
It’s free to use, and available on iOS and Android.
Source: StackOverflow
Kodable
Founded in 2012, Kodable is an excellent choice for teaching coding to kids. The workability involves a Kid-Optimized Developer Environment (KODE) experience, making coding easier to understand, interpret, and practice.
What’s more, it comes with a collection of games that help the kids understand and enjoy coding. Kodable divides the games based on the learning abilities of the kids (K+, Grade 3+, Grade K+).
These apps are available for download and engage the kids to implement their coding practices. The platform engages the students and the teachers and is one of the recommended platforms for schools and homeschooling.
Source: kodable.com
codeSpark
With an enhanced level of gamification, codeSpark brings a highly interactive learning experience for children who want to learn coding. The app is designed in a manner that allows the kids to choose the section they want to explore.
For instance, there are variables, Boolean logic, functions, etc., in each section. The kids can choose a section, which will begin a game, teaching the major elements and helping apply the knowledge to ace through the levels.
This enhanced gamification makes learning easier and exploring the levels helps reinforce the learning. It only has a 7-day trial period, and you’d need to sign up to acquire a teacher account.
Source: codespark.com
CodeMonkey
With a straightforward teaching method and interactive experience, CodeMonkey is another excellent choice for platforms to teach coding to kids. The good thing about this platform is that it has tons of content, covering the basics of computer programming.
Like all other coding platforms for kids, this one comes with gamification too, and provides the children with easy-to-understand coding exercises. Moreover, it ensures that the kids learn at their own pace, so it presents them with the tools according to their learning level. The special thing about this platform is that it encourages the kids to learn text-based coding, which is great for beginners.
Source: codemonkey.com
Code.org
With a great focus on providing kids with a plethora of resources, Code.org hosts content from different apps, schools, and other coding platforms, making it a great platform to access for learning coding, especially for kids. The Hour of Code Page for the kids has grade-level exercises, which the kids can choose as per their needs.
The amazing thing is that these exercises also teach the kids the art and science of coding through gamification. These game-based coding exercises, including Barbie, Minecraft, etc., are easily accessible to all audiences online as well as offline.
Source: Wikipedia.com
Blockly
Even though the games aren’t as graphically alluring as the other platforms, Blockly has several games that teach basic coding concepts. These games are designed to provide code examples through visual exercises.
The only catch is that these are only JavaScript coding exercises –you can only learn or teach your kids JavaScript. However, these exercises are fun, and once they’re completed, they illustrate the code for the exercise, which makes it easier to understand the concept behind them.
Overall, these apps are truly helpful and can guide kids in the best manner. They have excellent features and the apps are designed to provide basic coding concepts to the children, which can be used for solidifying their coding concepts.
