9-year-old daughter into coding - now what?

[redjam]

Just wondering if any forumites can give me some advice/inspiration for how to encourage and develop my daughter's love of coding, as it's an area I really don't know much about. She's really into Scratch, drawing very elaborate pictures, making up stories and animations, programming quizzes etc. But she's starting to talk about some other coding programs she's encountered at school or via friends (Kodu and Espresso Coding which I think comes from Discovery Education) and I wasn't sure what I should be encouraging as the 'next step' from Scratch.

Anyone have any words of advice or know of any local coding clubs where she could be taught a bit more?

[DirtyBox]

Have a look at www.codecademy.com, it has some tutorials on some decent languages (Java, Python, etc), might be a little advanced though

[Paulo]

The Hour of Code site could be worth looking at: https://code.org/learn Lots of free tutorials etc

Also Hopscotch, which is widely used in the KS2 Computing curriculum - a free app for ipads and iphones

[johnie]

How fantastic! What about Minecraft?

[scareyt]

You could post this question in the forum of the South London Makerspace and I'm sure you would get lots of helpful replies. https://discourse.southlondonmakerspace.org

[redjam]

Thanks for these helpful replies. Yes, she's hugely into Minecraft and apparently has already got the Hopscotch app and has done the Minecraft Hour of Code (who knew? I'm evidently not very closely monitoring her screen time!). I'll be looking into these other ideas too. Anyone else's kids use Kodu? Looks like you can only use it on a PC but we've got a Mac...

[Dodo1]

Try Spark 4 Kids @ Dulwich College Sports Club.

[Marienne]

Hi Redjam

My 9yo daughter is also into coding and have spent a lot of time doing Minecraft & Scatch at school.

We got her a coding and computer kit for her 9th birthday from Kano. It was not a cheap pressie but she got to build a computer which came as a kit of parts with some adaptability and can then code on it(other than gaming), and use it for normal other PC uses too. It is an educational toy for children, you can find out more about it here https://kano.me/

[njc97]

My 8yo loves his Kano: mostly scratch and hacking minecraft. A slightly cheaper alternative is to buy a raspberry pi and accessories, and then plug it into the TV:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/

The Kano kit is a raspberry pi, plus case, keyboard, screen etc, and the kano software which has loads of stuff specifically designed for kids. My son loved just building it, even before he turned it on and realised it means he's got his own computer.

[????]

Dodo1 Wrote:

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> Try Spark 4 Kids @ Dulwich College Sports Club.

Seconded. Really nice team.

[tarafitness]

How about attending a CoderDojo session? We often have them at my work (John Lewis head office in Victoria), but there are other locations in London too :)

[SebsC]

I get weekly emails from urban explorer.com which sends details of events held over London for all sorts of events aimed at children. They often send details of coding events/activities. This weeks email had two things listed ...

http://www.wizziewizzie.org

http://ioi.london

[redjam]

Some great ideas here - thanks so much everyone. I'll be following them up.

[alex_b]

It might be a little bit too old for her, but have you looked at the micro:bit (http://microbit.org/about/)? Cheap and mac compatible.