4 Best Ways to Make Code Fun For Kids
We always say there are many ways to make code fun. Robotic toys is one of the ways for code learning. Doubtlessly, coding skill is becoming an essential skill to master no matter for career development and even studies. With technology advancement and popularity, kids adapt to the use of diversified digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, notebooks, and even smartwatches. There is no denying that technology is influencing every single part of our daily life. And there are many methods to make code learning interesting and easy to pick up. Here we would like to introduce several methods to make code fun for kids. First of all, we need to know what coding is.
What is Coding?
Coding is the method to communicate with the computer. It tells the machine what you want it to perform. Imagine that every piece of code is just like the character in human language. A combination of code would transmit to meaningful words which let computer works as you instructed. What’s more, it can even invert to something new which serves diversified purposes such as software, mobile apps, website, etc. Therefore, even though we don’t know how to code, we still need to know how technology can better our lives in this digital era.
Coding plays an important role in communication between computers and users. you might ask whether kids should learn code in early education. The answer is definitely ‘YES‘ for sure. According to the researches that many educationists’ conducted, programming skill is suitable to develop starting at the stage of the preschool period. It brings many advantages to the child’s development in diversified aspects.
Here are the benefits of code learning. We would explain below in more detail in another article.
Benefits of Code Learning
- establish structural and logical thinking
- inspire kids’ creativity of problem-solving
- teach kids to be patient to practice and learn from errors
- better communication skill
- improve mathematics proficiency
- offer a sense of accomplishment from self-learning
- be independent and self-motivated to overcome obstacles
It is not easy to learn code from scratch. However, it does not mean learning code is difficult for kids. Here we would like to introduce a few interesting approaches to learn simple programming. They prove that coding could be fun and educational.
4 Best Ways to Make Code Fun for Kids
There are many ways to make code fun for kids. Coding robotic toys, Coding games, activities, and apps, and reading books about computer programming.
Below you can find some great ideas on how to make coding fun.
Coding Robotic Toys
Robot toys are always great toys for kids to learn code. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of robotic toys with different code learning features available in the market. And it is pretty easy to find coding robot toys for kids. Here are some of the coding robots we recommend.
Robo Wunderkind Robotic Kit
Robotic toys should include 3 core elements, Robots, Coding and Fun. That’s all that could be found Robo Wunderkind Robotic kit. Robo Wunderkind robotic toy is widely adopted by more than 200 schools and thousands of homes for STEM education. It is a modular kit that teaches kids elementary coding skills and robotics and suitable for aged 5 and above. It’s not only fun, but also educational and greatly helpful for STEM development. By using a few pieces of components and the TWO mobile apps Robo Live & Robo Code, kids can build and code their robots to unleash unlimited creativity. To see what makes Robo Wunderkind special, please see our Review HERE.
UBTECH Iron Man MK50 Robot
It is specially designed for Marvel’s fans no matter you are kids or kidults. You will have fun to play as Tony Stark and suit up as Iron Man. MK50 Robot allows players to receive diversified weaponry training, experience challenging augmented reality (AR) missions, upgrade their robotic toy and even personalize armor performance by using the mobile app available on both IOS and Android. To read our full review HERE.
Wonder Workshop Dash Interactive Robot Toy
Wonder Workshop Dash is an award-winning interactive robot toy. It is not only entertaining but also educational for kids aged 5 and up. Kids can command their robot toy to perform various tasks via voice command and simple coding. It also enables kids to establish logical thinking by a series of practices and challenging missions provided by several FREE mobile apps available on both iPhone and Android devices. What’s more, Dash interactive robot toy can even do more than expected by equipping additional accessories. To find our detailed review HERE.
Interested in more robotic toy reviews, simply click HERE.
Coding Games and Activities
If you don’t want your kids to stay on the computer front, there are still many ways to learn code. Coding activity is another mean to introduce code to kids. It encourages kids to learn elementary coding through interesting games. Here are a few activities that parents can play with kids to learn basic coding.
Coding a LEGO Maze
If you have extra pieces of LEGO home, they can definitely help build a maze and teach code. Following the instruction of Research Parent, parents can help kids learn diversified programming concepts and theories by solving 4 levels of challenges. Here is the quick overview, and you can see more details here.
Reference: https://researchparent.com/
How to play code game with fun?
Level 1:
The child can see the specific problem at hand and step by step walk their LEGO figure out of the maze. Like the game Robot Turtles, this easiest level teaches the child to think from a point of reference different than their own. The child’s left may not be the same as the figure-in-the-maze’s left, but even the youngest kids can learn this valuable skill of switching reference frame.
Level 2:
Hopefully, by the time they’ve mastered Level 1, your child will realize that it’s a bit tedious to tell the character to move forward 7 times in a row. Rather, it would be handy to just have a way to say “Do this next command 7 times.” This level introduces the concept of “for loops.”
Level 3:
Older children might be ambitious enough at this point to realize that an awful lot of work goes into solving a specific maze using the method of Levels 1 and 2. With the introduction of “while loops” and “if statements”, kids can challenge themselves to write as short a program as possible to solve a specific maze. The programmer just needs to consider all possibilities at any random location for their LEGO figure and decide the best generic sequence of actions. For example, what should the character do if there’s an opening to their left? What if they’ve hit a dead-end?
Level 4:
While kids will hopefully experience success in Level 3, they will likely find that if they try to use their code on a different maze, it may not work. It’s possible that their figure will get stuck in what programmers call an “infinite loop”, repeating the same behavior over and over again without being able to escape. By introducing a random number generator, older kids can write a program that can get their figure out of any maze.
MAPPING A ROUTE
That’s another easy game to learn simple code. It is fun and greatly helpful to develop kids’ logical thinking. Basically, The concept is similar to code and instruct a computer what we want it to do, but now, we will give the command to kids instead. Parents can use tape to point the obstacles and goals on the floor. The child would be blindfolded and received instructions. Kids will be directed to the destination eventually. Parents can deliver commands like the steps to move forward, move backward, turn to left / right, etc. which help guide your children to the destination.
Check out the details from Science Sparks
Coding Apps and Games
With the popularity of smart devices, kids get used to having preschool learning via various mobile phone apps and games. For sure, coding apps and games are also alternative means to introduce early code learning. Here are some great games and apps we highly recommend.
Tynker
Tynker is one of the great platform offer kids online coding courses. They share informative free and paid resources via their website with parents and kids. And kids can learn computer programming and diversified STEAM skills in an enjoyable way.
Check out more details about Tynker: www.tynker.com/
Minecraft
Minecraft, almost everyone knows this popular game available on smartphones, computers as well as consoles. It is not only entertaining but also educational in teaching the concepts of coding. Kids can craft and build independently and work with others as a team to build their own unique virtual world.
Check out these game here: www.minecraft.net
Coding Books
Last but not least, don’t overlook the knowledge that kids can absorb from coding books. Every kid love reading books. And it is still one of the best and effective ways that kids reach code. Here are a few books broadly suggested for learning code with fun.
My First Coding Book
One of the greatest coding books for beginners of code learning. Preschoolers to first graders can explore code knowledge like the general terms, algorithm, variable, cause, and consequence, etc. by the step-by-step lessons covered in this book.
Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding
Kids can follow the girl named Ruby to learn computer programming and theories via storytelling approach. The story is pretty interesting and it absolutely can help motivate kids to step further into the world of coding. It also provides several apps, online games, and additional information around the story. Ruby’s fans would surely love this wonderful coding book to learn to begin to advanced coding skills.
Python for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Programming
Have you ever heard Python? Python is another programming common to learn nowadays.
This book uses lots of visual aids to stimulate kids’ interest in the coding concepts covered in the book. It is one of the best Python guides for kids to explain complicated code in the simplest way.
Conclusion
Most of the parents like me also refuse to learn code at the beginning. However, there are lots of ways to explore the scope of code and make this essential skill fun and practical. We hope above can bring you some new ideas about how to learn code with ease. Enjoy Reading!