Programming for toddlers in childcare: Daily Activity & Programming Examples for Child Care

Daily Activity & Programming Examples for Child Care

Children thrive with routine and structure in their lives- in a world where they have little control, it gives them a sense of autonomy and security. When children expect what’s coming it also frees their minds for creativity and imagination, so that they can relax into a familiar and comfortable routine and get busy doing the important work of playing and learning.

Structure also helps the child care centre run smoothly, as it assists large groups of children to navigate the often tricky transitions with more ease and efficiency, and is a way for educators to ensure that each desired area of learning is being met and progress monitored.

Having a daily routine that is designed to best meet the needs of the children and the staff, will go a long way in creating a productive and happy child care centre. We have compiled some child care programming ideas and provided some child care program examples to get you started.

General flow of the centre

To start planning a child care program, ideas on what you would like the overall structure of the centre to look like are important. Start with the basic schedule, such as timing of food, naps and outdoor/indoor sessions, and then build on this for optimum child care programming. Examples of this basic schedule could look like this:

Once the overall routine has been decided, you can start planning the specific child care activities, games and learning outcomes you’re aiming for in each time slot. While you can get creative with this, each program should be meeting learning and development aims and national Early Learning Centre guidelines and recommendations.

Areas to cover in your daily program activities include:

• Physical skill development
• Social and interpersonal relation skills
• Speech and language development
• Creativity and art 
• Self-help skills and life skills
• Problem-solving, critical analysis and mathematical concepts
• Working as a team and independently

Each room will have a different focus depending on age and ability level, and should also be tailored to meet the needs of individual children. 

Babies program

In this age group the program should mainly be focussed on developing a routine and secure attachment with carers, as well as establishing and maintaining feeding and sleeping habits.  Carers should use singing, reading and one-to-one interaction to encourage cognitive development, and facilitate age-appropriate activities such as tummy time to assist physical development. Read about activities for babies age 0-6 months here to gather ideas for your babies room. 

Toddlers program

The toddlers program should be focussed on developing and practicing self-help skills and daily tasks, and socialising with other children. Through free and structured play, toddlers can practice learning to take turns, collaborate on larger games or play projects, and development of social and communication skills. Plenty of reading and singing encourages language and vocabulary development, so this should also form a part of the program.

At this age, toddlers are also beginning to test their skills with risk-taking play (https://toddle.com.au/thecorkboard/risky-play) and behaviour, so having appropriate outlets for this such as climbing stations, water play and use of age-appropriate tools will help them to explore this in a safe manner. Plenty of outdoor play is encouraged, as it helps to burn their enormous amounts of energy and practice a host of physical and cognitive skills. Check out these child care activities ideas for toddlers to help plan your toddlers program.  

Preschool program

This age group is building on skills through the same mediums as the toddler group, with an added focus on literacy, mathematical concepts and science. Develop opportunities through play and child care/family daycare activities that teach these skills in a natural way such as indoor and outdoor play, group activities and opportunities for solo play.

Here are some ideas for preschool child care activities:

• Painting –  kids can paint cards for their parents and practice their letters on the inside
• Outdoor scavenger hunt- give kids clues (such as colour and texture based) and a basket, and let them find treasures that match the clues in nature
• Building blocks – get pre-schoolers involved in collaborative castle or village building
• Art and craft – children love activities that involve drawing, cutting, glueing, and they learn a lot in the process
• Music- use rhythm instruments or even pots and spoons to practice keeping time to songs

Get started on creating your ultimate child care program using some of these child care programming examples, and the multitude of easily accessible childcare programming templates, or family day care programming templates, available on the internet. Bring your own personal flair as an educator to your program so that it reflects your child care centre and what makes it special, and sign up to Toddle to connect with potential families and showcase your unique program.

Early Learning Activities, Ideas & Programming Support for EC Educators!

If you are feeling a little unmotivated to setup or create at the moment you will find a HUGE collection of playful ideas, inspiration and programming support for educators and parents when you scroll through 2018’s most visited posts and pages here on The Empowered Ed blog – I’ve already categorised them into my Empowered Ed 8 Essential Learning Areas and they are waiting for you below!

I was actually updating my records recently and was amazed to find out that this Empowered Educator website had nearly 1 million pageviews in 2018!! THANKYOU to all of those that visited the blog, emailed, left messages, asked questions, joined my Facebook Group, became a member of the new Empowered Ed Hub, opened a weekly newsletter or downloaded one of my professional development resources or training!!

We truly have become an Empowered Educator Community and I’m so proud of you for seeking out the support you need, wanting to increase your skills in certain areas, continually providing engaging learning experiences and environments for young children or just recognising and embracing the fact that we are always learning something new no matter our level of education, training or practical experience…. and it’s ok  (in fact I’d say empowered!)to go back to basics or seek to simplify to achieve that goal without spending your life savings or nights hiding in the cupboard with a chocolate and glass of chardonnay!!

So I thought it might be helpful as we head further into 2019 to take a closer look at the 2018 stats and share with you the most frequently visited blog posts in what I consider to be the 8 essential areas educators and other readers are currently finding helpful and above all supportive to their different roles! Perhaps there might be something you missed even if you are a regular reader (and who could blame you – time is so hard to come by in this job!).

So let’s scroll down through the Empowered Educator 8 essential learning areas I’ve put together for you. I’d also suggest saving this page to your bookmarks or pinning to your favourite Pinterest board as you are going to want to come back and forth as this is a huge collection and treasure trove of support for you!

This is the Empowered Educator learning area that readers visited most frequently in 2018 so if you are feeling overwhelmed in this area or just want to simplify and revisit the basics please know that you are definitely not on your own in wanting to access support with your planning! Here are the top 8 posts for this category in 2018…. .

Understanding Observations, Reflection and Linking in Early Childhood Settings.

Creating Paperless Child Portfolios (Includes Video!)

Simple Critical Reflection for Educators

Summative Assessments for Early Learning

Analysis, Reflection and Evaluation in Early Childhood Programming.

Early Childhood Programming Made Simple – Part 2 Using Observations Effectively

Child Portfolios in Early Childhood Settings – Are they Necessary?

Working with the Framework Learning Outcomes – Part 1 LINKING

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will already know I absolutely love finding ways to encourage children to develop a respect for the world around them. By including them as active participants in their own learning AND making it easy and fun they are more likely to continue with the actions and skills they are learning as they grow older.

As early childhood educators and parents it is up to us to ensure children can access opportunities to look after the world and community around them in a variety of different ways…and that doesn’t just mean having a vegetable garden and chickens!  Let’s take a look at some of the most popular posts in this category for 2018…

Reusing Tyres in Outdoor Play Spaces

Repurpose spools and reels for play!

Sensory Clay Nature Ornaments

Make a Recycled Plant Pot Scarecrow

Outdoor Play Areas – Part 4 – Incorporating Sustainability

Recycling Fun with Rubbish and Pallets!

Recycling with children – easy ideas to get them involved!

Effective and Safe Green Cleaning for Home and Daycare!

Recycled Play Series – #1 Outdoor Fun

Introducing Sustainability to Children…. Ideas and Inspiration!

Sustainability in the Garden – How to Make a Worm Tower!

Setting up indoor and outdoor playful learning environments doesn’t have to mean overcomplicating, spending huge amounts of money or taking 2 hours to set up a Pinterest worthy invitation to play each morning. It’s about knowing and understanding the needs of the children in your care, thinking outside the box, using what you already have in different ways, inviting children to take ownership of their space and ensuring they feel a sense of belonging.

Browse through the most visited posts in this category last year for a little inspiration and some simple strategies to try whether working in a home based or centre based environment!

Setting up Invitations To Play – Inspiration from Educators

5 Important elements to include in your natural outdoor play space

Creating Early Learning Spaces for Multi-Age Groups

Community Inspiration – Outdoor Play Environments

Playful Learning Spaces for Babies and Toddlers

Creating Outdoor Playspaces & Experiences for Home Daycare!

Designing Outdoor Play Spaces – Part 1 Assess & Reflect

Outdoor Play Series – #1 Working with Small Spaces

Providing regular opportunities for children to engage in sensory play is important to me as both an educator and a Mum. I truly believe if I hadn’t offered sensory play experiences to my twins from a young age the issues one has had with sensory processing challenges would have been a lot worse and we wouldn’t have made the progress we have over the years. We have gone from gagging and throwing up when her foot touched wet sand to painting and crafting with wet sand!

Never underestimate the power of sensory play….it’s one of the most popular search topics on my blog so let’s take a look at what readers were interested in throughout 2018!

Make your own Sensory Small World

Make your own rainbow sensory balls for play!

15 Strategies to encourage SPD toddlers to eat!

10 Easy ideas for sensory sand play

Gardening with Children – Make a Sensory Plant Tower!

Crowns from Nature – Mess Free Sensory Fun

Sensory Exploration & Play-based Learning with Playdough.

Soapy Sensory Slime

‘Crossing the Midline’ …Activities for Toddlers!

Sensory Painting for children – Exploring texture through art

Play is indeed a child’s ‘work’ and so very important to all stages of development. There are many ways we can introduce, encourage and extend upon play based learning – no big budget or fancy equipment required! Why not try some of these favourite ideas and experiences visited by Empowered Ed readers last year.

Using Open Ended Materials in Outdoor Play.

Extending Block Play for Early Learning

20 Ideas to Encourage Outdoor Rainy Day Play

Taking Dramatic Play Outside – Ideas to get you started!

Toddler Foam Block Shape Stamping!

Ideas for reading to active toddler groups

Sensory Fine Motor Magnet Fun with Recycled Materials

We’re going on a Goopy Bear Hunt…. .Fine Motor Sensory Fun!

Playful Tubs and Trays for Toddlers

5 Easy and Safe Slime Recipes

I’m pretty passionate about the benefits of family day care environments and supporting home based educators in their dual role of educator and small business owner. It’s not for the faint hearted or lazy that’s for sure, but it can be oh so rewarding to set up your own environment and run your early learning service according to your philosophy and principles while welcoming children and families to your home each day.

Because I have walked in the shoes of a family day care educator as well as coordinator I know the effort and skill it takes and how easy it can be to feel isolated and unsupported in your work….and that’s why I will continue to share articles that speak directly to the specific needs of Family Day Care educators! Perhaps one of the most popular posts in this category for 2018 could help you too!

Setting up for Home Daycare…Part 1

Family Day Care Educators & Environments – Part 1

Choosing a Family Daycare Scheme – what do you need to consider?

Home Based Early Childhood Services – The real story.

Designing play & learning spaces for home – Part 1 Indoors.

Setting up a Family Day Care – Is it right for you?

Setting up for Home Child Care – Tips for keeping your house a home!

Ideas for promoting and advertising a home day care business.

Documenting in Home/Family Day Care Part 2 – Finding your programming style.

Interviewing new parents for your Family Day Care Service – 5 Top Tips to ensure your success!

The Educational leader can take many forms within the early childhood profession and is an important role….however it can also be a stressful role, especially if leaders are not clear on exactly what it is they are meant to be doing! Depending on the early learning service type it can be a complex job description and ongoing support is essential to the success of a cohesive and happy team…as well as leader!

In 2019 I’ll be sharing articles and resources with a greater focus on helping educational leaders better understand & simplify their role, motivate, mentor and initiate change where needed. If you are an educational leader make sure to check out the resource shop here on the website or visit my TPT store if you find that easier. In the meantime you can get started on some previous articles that support the varied role of leaders and educators.

Marketing Strategies for Child Care Services

How to become an assertive early years educator.

How to Engage & Communicate with Families Effectively

10 Tips to Manage Daycare Paperwork!

Process V Product in Early Learning – Can we find a balance?

Educator Organisation Series – Part 2 Orientation Packs.

Stress & Anxiety in the Early Childhood Profession.

Designing Outdoor Play Spaces – Part 1 Assess & Reflect

How to Support Communication in the Early Years.

Writing Engaging and Useful Newsletters for Parents

Sustainability – How can Early Years Educators show evidence of embedded practice?

Often the most popular or played with resources and equipment are the ones you have made yourself with budget friendly or recycled materials. Instead of wishing you had a bigger budget or adding yet another page to your wishlist why not try one of the projects or activities below – make sure to include the children in your process!!

Make your own chalk paint!

Make your own resources for Play. Recycle. Upcycle. Create!

Homemade Toddler Feltboard Easel

DIY Easy Resources for Play

Easy Sensory Slime Recipe for Play

12 Easy DIY Sensory Table Projects

How to make and play with Homemade Paint

How to invite dramatic play using prop boxes.

Magic Marble Playdough

DIY Natural Playspaces – Chairs, Buses and Climbing Frames!

Playful Storytelling – Using a Story Bag, Basket or Prop Box

Wooden Stump Geoboards – Taking Math Play Outdoors!

8 Ways to Play Outdoors with Wood Cookies

DIY Outdoor Balance Scales

I hope you have found this collection of ideas and inspiration (as well as the freebie resources on certain pages) helpful – perhaps it has reignited that mojo and motivation to take action! Did any of the posts in this collection help you in some way? Let me know your favourite in the comments below – I love to hear from readers!

How to Plan for & Observe Babies and Toddlers in Early Learning Services!

To plan effectively for the 0-2 Years age group takes a little thinking outside the box. You need to give yourself permission as an educator to work differently, use an alternate planning system,document then reflect and communicate in a way that perhaps you haven’t used before when working previously with older children – but makes a whole lot more sense when it comes to meeting learning outcomes for babies and toddlers.

In this blog series – Planning & Play for Babies & Toddlers I’m sharing with you ideas to help make planning play experiences and programming for this age group not only easier and faster but also more meaningful and effective for the children and carers. 

What will this Baby/Toddler Planning & Play Series Cover?

The WHAT. The WHY. The HOW

This first post in the series shares with you WHAT it is we actually need to do as early childhood educators working with Babies & Toddlers, WHY we need to do this when it comes to meeting not only the planning cycle steps but also meeting the wellbeing, nurturing and safety needs of a child 0-2 years in care. And finally, a brief introduction into HOW we are going to make it happen! 

How to Observe & Tools to Use

You will find out WHY recording the learning, meaningful moments and progress of a baby or toddler needs a different approach. We’ll explore WHAT you can observe and HOW to use different observation formats and tools effectively.

Learning Environments, Voices & looking Forward

We finish the series with part 3 and it is in this post that you will find out how to create and support learning in Baby & Toddler environments, seek out , incorporate & use the child’s voice in your planning (even when they are non verbal!) , empower and support educators working with this age group and end with some strategies for closing the planning cycle loop and taking some simple action steps to help get you moving forward!

Ready to get started on Part 1 of this series? Let’s Do It Empowered Ed!

Planning & Play for  0-2 Years – Part 1 – What, Why & How.

Before we talk about creating an overall planning system and how to fit all the necessary paperwork in, let’s take a minute to break down and get clear on WHAT it is we actually need to do And WHY when it comes to meeting not only the planning cycle steps but also meeting the wellbeing, nurturing and safety needs of baby.

The 5 areas I list for you below ideally should already be part of your early learning curriculum and focus if working with the 0-2 years age group. (It is with any early years age group really) but the younger ages have a larger focus on routines, wellbeing and parent communication due to their high level of physical and emotional needs.

5 Essential Focus Areas for Early Learning with 0-2 Years

Family Communication & Belonging

Indoor & Outdoor environments are safe, challenging, welcoming.

Routines are flexible according to children’s specific needs day to day but children generally know what they can expect and when.

Assessment & documentation systems in place and organised to collect essential information to inform ongoing programming and save time by not doubling up or recording unnecessary information

Reflection processes that are simple but consistent and useful.

Communicating with Families and the Cycle of Information

When planning and setting future learning goals for children we want to try and include multiple sources of information that we have recorded or documented over different time periods. This then all comes together to form a clear picture using a summative assessment (or similar) at regular intervals throughout the year. 

The cycle of information needs to be continuous and consistent to help you to plan effectively for both individual children as well as groups and as I mentioned earlier above family communication plays a larger role in this process – especially when planning for babies and toddlers.

Try to make it a regular part of your planning system/process to incorporate both educator observations and the family information you gain throughout the year using the consistent and meaningful family communication tools and strategies you have put in place already. All information can help you to form a more comprehensive picture of the child in your care. This is an important way you can include the child’s voice in your overall program.

Now that you have a better understanding of why family communication and gaining knowledge regarding the child’s general family life is actually an important part of your programming, you might be looking for a few tips to help you make your current process a little more effective….and that doesn’t mean more complicated or time-consuming – it means using your time and tools more effectively!

Try some of the following suggestions…

7 Simple Ideas to Collaborate Meaningfully with families – and help you plan more effectively for babies and toddlers!

1. Be respectful and acknowledge that parents are always the child’s first teacher.
2. Support a strengths-based approach with parents which basically just means that you take the time to recognise that families have strengths too – you are aiming for a partnership rather than assuming you are always the expert or must know better!
3. As mentioned previously – put orientation and daily communication systems in place to learn as much as you can about baby or toddlers’ home experiences and family life/culture.
4. Communicate and exchange information consistently every single day – not just when you need to know something or ‘get the chance’. If a child’s core educators cannot be present to speak with parents at either drop-off or pick up times then put clear communication processes in place so that other educators know how to effectively communicate information about the child’s day. Use simple communication books if you have a large team of educators doing different shifts.
5. Make it quick and easy for parents and carers to communicate with you! Use easy to read, visual formats, ensure parents who are unable to pick up or drop off also have access to information about their child’s day via the cloud or email systems, use surveys but keep them brief – no one wants to write paragraphs of information just to check off your boxes!
6. Explore ways you can communicate more effectively with your ESL Families.
7. Put in place a child orientation process that includes opportunities for parents to share relevant information with you easily and feel confident that not only their child feels a sense of belonging and trust but this also extends to the family as a whole.

These courses are suitable for children from 12 years old, last from 40 hours and cost from 30,000 RUR. Students learn about machine learning and learn how to create simple versions of artificial intelligence, such as a program that can recognize pictures of cats, or a telegram bot.

Such courses will help deepen your knowledge of mathematics: the creation of neural networks is closer to mathematical modeling than just programming. The courses are suitable for children from the age of 14, last from 40 hours, on average they cost from 45,000 RUR.

Protect data on the Internet. These courses teach information hygiene and network security rules, understand how data encryption works, and learn Python at a basic level. All this helps to develop both general educational skills – for example, critical thinking – and applied ones: after such courses, students can easily recover data that they accidentally deleted.

Typically, students aged 10 years and older are invited to data protection classes: courses last from 20 hours and cost an average of 20,000 RUR.

Vlog. Students learn to identify the needs of their viewers, come up with a channel concept, write video scripts, and finally shoot and edit videos. Even if the child does not become a blogger, these skills will be useful to him in school presentations, and indeed when creating any projects.

Children from 10 years old take part in such courses, the course lasts from 20 hours and costs from 20,000 rubles.

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How learning works

It is important not only to find an interesting topic, but also to find out in advance whether it will be convenient for the child to study. Otherwise, he runs the risk of quitting classes in the middle of the program simply because of “technical” difficulties: a tiring road to class or too fast pace in the lesson. I’ll tell you what formats classes have and how to choose the right one.

Online or offline. A few years ago, almost all schools held offline classes: this made it easier for teachers to maintain a friendly atmosphere, help children with difficult tasks and receive feedback from them. During the pandemic, most schools switched to online teaching, and now they offer students the choice of studying in person or online.

By itself, online is no worse – most often, children and the teacher meet in zoom conferences, complete tasks, share the screen in case of problems and the teacher helps them correct mistakes. If the computer freezes or there are other technical difficulties, they are solved by the support service.

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For future art historians and programmers: 11 powerful online courses for children

at least for the first time, while the child is getting used to it.

The site where the online class is held depends on the school: in Coddy and Geekbrains, the teacher and students meet in zoom conferences, in Codabra they study in the Discord game messenger, and in Algorithmic they use interactive platform. Previously, in some schools, children simply studied material from pre-recorded videos, but now this practice has been abandoned.

Individual or group lessons. The standard format for programming courses is group lessons. Some schools, such as Codabre, provide one-time individual lessons – in case the student missed the general meeting and cannot cope with the material on his own or wants to study a more complex topic that is not yet available in group courses.

In “Codium” and “Coddy” you can initially choose an individual format if parents doubt the group one: for example, they consider the child to be too shy, they know that he learns the material more slowly than others, or, conversely, they think that he will be bored in the group because he already knows how to program at a high level.

Game or project approach. Almost all schools use a project approach – in the classroom, children do not just gain knowledge or solve programming problems, but create some kind of product, for example, a mini-game or several pages of a website.

But for preschoolers and first graders, it is better to choose courses with a game approach: for example, in Codabra and Coddy, classes for 7-8 year olds are built as an exciting quest.

Long or short course. The progress of the student depends on the number of classes, but it is important not to overload the child with lessons so as not to discourage the desire to program.

Standard courses consist of 20 lessons once a week: this is considered the optimal pace. But there are other options as well. For example, mini-courses of 10 lessons in “Codabra” or “Codium” will help you quickly learn the basics of certain skills – this is useful for students who want to try different things. And in Codland, some courses last for 32 lessons and allow you to dive deeper into the topic if the child has already decided on the specialization.

What other parameters are important when choosing a course

Several other important parameters can affect the quality and cost of training. I’ll tell you what to pay attention to so that training is effective and does not take up most of the family budget.

Experience of teachers. Top-notch developers rarely go to work in online schools. This is due both to the level of salary and professional ambitions – programming schools pay less than large IT companies, and not all developers and team leaders want to work with children.

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How to find a good tutor

Therefore, classes in programming schools are usually taught by graduates of technical universities, including very strong ones, such as Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology or Bauman. Nevertheless, their professional level may differ: some schools pay attention only to the knowledge of the material and the ability to program, while others also take into account the experience of working with children and the pedagogical skills of future teachers.

Codland school teachers graduated from technical universities and win pedagogical competitions. Source: kodland.org

Hardware and software. Usually, for children’s courses, Windows 7 or MacOS 10.10 and the installed Google Chrome browser are sufficient. But to develop games on Unity, you will need 20 gigabytes of free space and at least 4 gigabytes of RAM: not all home computers have such parameters, which means that you will have to buy a new gadget for courses.

Schools that conducted and continue to conduct offline classes used to rent laptops – this is not usually practiced now, but it is better to check with school managers.

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How to choose a laptop for study in 2022

For example, this laptop will do: it will definitely have enough processor power and RAM. Source: dns-shop.ru

School website. The school website usually provides detailed information about courses, class format and teachers. First of all, I recommend paying attention to the detailed program and the results that students can achieve: this will help determine whether the content of the course matches the expectations of the child and parents.

It is also important to find out the requirements for a child – most often, younger students should be able to use a mouse and be able to read, while older children should know English at an elementary level and be able to type.

Codabra has several courses dedicated to game development: in order not to miscalculate the choice, it is better to study the program of each in advance. Source: codabra.org On the Algorithmics website, you can learn about the features of the classes: they take place on a special learning platform that allows you to learn at your own pace, but at the same time actively interact with other students. Source: algoritmika.org

Reviews about the school. I recommend studying reviews on third-party resources: in 2GIS, Otzovik, Advisor: this will allow you to learn not only about the advantages of the school, but also about its shortcomings.

In addition to the work of teachers, pay attention to how the interaction with managers works. Sometimes parents like what and how they teach in courses, but they are completely dissatisfied with the service – technical support does not respond to problems, managers do not explain well how to pay for classes: all this can also affect the comfort of the learning process.

This is a Geekbrains profile on the review service. You can already find your bearings here, but it is better to read all the reviews. Source: otzovik.ru The main thing is to read the details, and not just pay attention to the “asterisks”. Sometimes a negative review arises due to a banal misunderstanding, and a positive one is published after the first trial lesson – it is difficult to judge long-term prospects by it. Source: mooc.ru

Also study the reviews of former teachers: they can draw the attention of parents to problems and difficulties that are not visible from the side of the parent and student.

For example, a former Codabra teacher scolded the school for the way classes were organized and the work of methodologists was organized. At the same time, the founder of the school answered him in a separate post and tried to explain the problems in the work of the school: public correspondence helps to understand in detail the organization’s work system and understand whether such an approach to teaching a child likes or not.

Terms of payment. Some schools allow you to pay for courses not in full, but for one lesson. In this case, pay attention to the time of the lesson for which prices are indicated on the site: usually this is the cost per hour, and classes often last two hours.

Programming schools often allow you to pay for classes with the help of maternity capital, but you should check with managers before starting classes.

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4 ways to spend maternity capital on what you really need for a full course. Here are the options to do so.

Attend a trial lesson. All schools have them, but they are arranged differently. For example, in Geekbrains and Codland, a trial lesson is free of charge, and in Coddy, they offer to pay for one lesson as a test, so far without a subscription.

Before a trial lesson, find out who is conducting it: the teacher or the manager. The first option is preferable: after a lesson with a manager, it will be difficult to understand how the courses are actually taught.

Sometimes trial lessons just show how the work works, and sometimes they help to identify the interests of the child: this is useful if the student is not completely sure about the choice of the course.

After the trial session, ask your child if they liked the exercises and the teacher, if it was difficult or, conversely, too easy. If in doubt, it is better to go to trial classes at other schools and compare impressions.

Try summer intensive or short courses. Programming schools hold intensives during summer and other school holidays. The topics of the courses may vary — they are brighter and more popular than regular classes: for example, in Codabra in the summer they could learn how to shoot short videos for Tiktok, and in Coddy, the guys tried to draw anime-style illustrations.

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Children’s camps where they will learn how to cook, program and make movies

You can also try short courses of up to 10 lessons – they will take two months, the child will quickly achieve the first results, and the parent will understand how useful and interesting it is for the child.

On weekends, Coddy offers free master classes: where a child can achieve the first results and understand if he likes programming. Source: coddyschool.com

What to pay attention to during classes

Usually a child experiences courage and pleasure from the first lessons, but a little later the wow effect disappears, and the tasks become more difficult and there is no longer a desire to study further. This is normal: if contact is established with the teacher and the child feels comfortable in class, the adaptation period will not last long.

But sometimes a child’s refusal to study can also signal other problems: for example, boring lessons or conflicts with a teacher. To figure out what exactly is the reason for the child’s unwillingness to continue classes and whether it is worth going to courses further, I recommend paying attention to several parameters.

Whether the child wants to program. It happens that a child simply does not fit the program of a particular course: for example, it turned out that programming games is not as fun as playing them. In such a situation, you can offer the child to go to trial classes of other programs or ask the teacher to give assignments on other topics – in order to identify the interests of the child and figure out which course is best for him.

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English, programming and logic: 9educational online games for children

How is the relationship with the teacher. Pay particular attention to this item in both individual and group sessions. In a group, a child can communicate with peers, but the teacher still remains the core and main source of information and support. If the teacher pays little attention to the child, ignores his questions, insults him, then complain to the manager, and also demand to organize a direct conversation where you can ask questions and sort out the problem.

The child may also have problems due to an unusual communication style. In some schools, for example in Codabra, teachers do not complain to parents about absenteeism or the child’s behavior, but sort these problems out with the student himself. If a child is not accustomed to an open dialogue about a problem, then he may perceive this as criticism and attack.

How technical support works. At the start of classes, technical problems may periodically arise: while parents and the child are not yet familiar with the platform on which the classes are held, or with the necessary programs. Ideally, the support service should respond instantly, but if there are many calls, then a delay of several minutes is possible. If technical support takes a long time to respond or cannot solve the problem, contact the manager – technical support is always included in the cost of the lesson.

What results does the child achieve. Evaluating the results is not easy if you don’t understand how programming works. When the child makes the first game, you will understand his strength, but this will happen in a few months, and mini-projects may seem formulaic and simple. Ask the teacher to explain to you how to properly evaluate the results – what to look for and how to understand them.

Attend class yourself, at least occasionally. So you will understand how easily the child copes, see the work of the teacher and feel the atmosphere in the lesson.

Remember

1. When choosing courses, it is most important to focus on the interests, goals and age of the child.
2. When choosing a specific online school, pay attention to the teaching experience of teachers and the requirements for students — your child may need to improve their English before classes.
3. Sign your child up for a trial lesson, but be prepared to pay for it.
4. Attend some of the classes so it will be easier for you to understand what you are paying for and how hard it is for your child to study.
5. Pay attention to the relationship between the child and the teacher – interest and involvement strongly depend on them.

TOP-25 Programming Courses for Kids [08.2022]

There is no doubt that programming and IT is one of the most promising career paths in the 21st century. But along with great opportunities comes high competition. To succeed in this industry, it is better to start training already in childhood, especially since today children can also learn relevant skills online. We have prepared for you a selection of the best programming schools and courses for children.

08/22/2022 Updated

We have updated our rating and updated all the information for 2022. We update all information once a week.

Top 7 Schools for Beginners in 2022

Read also:
Free online courses. TOP 100 in 2022

The same courses, but in more detail:

Contents

• Top 7 Schools for Beginners in 2022
• Same courses, but more:
  • Journey to a successful future
  • Education for the present and future
  • Teaching children to code and make games
  • Scratch lessons
  • Entering IT: helping you master the digital world
  • International school for young children from 4 to 18 years
  • Learn to code already at school
  • Online course on programming for children and teenagers
• Courses from other sites:
• Free courses
• FAQ
• Summary

1

Journey to a successful future

GeekSchool

Summer Promotion Get discounts up to 50% 👈
We guarantee employment – or reinter the money
Discounts are available by professions in directions:
🍓 Marking 🍓 Design 🍓 Development according to the unique methodology of “KESPA”;
– assistance in finding employment;
– portfolio projects.

• Duration: from 3 to 15 months, depends on the course;
• Cost: from 18,000 ₽, or 12,600 ₽ with a discount;
• Age: 7-17 years;
• Format: theory, practical tasks;
• Certificate of completion: certificate.

GO TO SITE

Destinations

The site offers several educational programs for children of different ages (first graders, junior high school students, high school students), which will help to explore the following areas:

1. Python.
2. Scratch.
3. JavaScript.
4. Artificial intelligence.

How will you study?

• Groups up to 15 people.
• Developed community of students.
• Lots of practice and project work.
• Teamwork and communication: quizzes, competitions, discussions.

Benefits

• Several courses to choose from for students of all ages
• Strong experts teach
• Lessons in the format of live webinars
• Interesting practical tasks
• Support of a mentor and methodologists
• Discounts, installments, tax deductions, payment by maternity capital

Shortcomings

• Not detected

  GeekSchool courses:

  Python Programming Fundamentals is a solid curriculum for children aged 11-17. During the training, children will understand the basics of programming, the structure of web applications, and begin to write their first programs. They will study linear algorithms, branches, loops, functions, arrays, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Flask, Jinja2, databases and CRUD, SQLite, will be able to independently create and deploy applications on the server.

  Basics of Web Development – the curriculum is also designed for teenagers 11-17 years old. In 3 months, students will learn how to set up the environment, create HTML pages, work with tags, tables, hyperlinks, tag attributes, learn the style sheet, cascading, block model, JavaScript, Bootstrap.

  Minecraft: Python Programming is a program for students aged 11-14. Main topics: variables, math, strings, booleans, if construct, while loop, functions, lists, dictionaries, tuples, multithreading, object-oriented programming. Learning in a playful way using the example of Minecraft makes the learning process exciting and interesting.

  Web design: creating sites in Tilda, Figma, Readymag – a curriculum for children aged 11-17 with a finished project in the portfolio.

  2

  Education for the present and future

  SkySmart (Codium)

  • Duration: flexible;
  • Cost: from 799 ₽ per lesson;
  • Age: from 7 years old;
  • Format: video lessons with a tutor, practical tasks, tests;
  • Certificate of completion: not declared.

  GO TO SITE

  Destinations

  The school offers many courses to choose from. There is a gradation according to the level of preparation of the child: for beginners, students with basic and advanced knowledge, gamers.

  So, for beginners from scratch, useful basic digital literacy courses are offered for different operating systems – MacOS, Windows, Scratch base, game development base on Construct 3.

  Enthusiastic gamers will be able to enroll in a course on Roblox, App Inventor, Thunkable, creating games in Minecraft.

  Students who have a basic knowledge of programming will be able to deepen them in courses on Python, mobile application development and websites.

  For advanced young programmers, a Python course is also recommended, as well as programs for working with Unity and Unreal Engine game engines.

  Training

  • Learning in a browser, all information on one tab: video chat with a teacher, practical tasks, tests.
  • Individual training program.
  • Many practical tasks, work on projects.
  • Teacher feedback, progress tracking.
  • Lesson lasts 50 minutes.

  Advantages

  • There is a free introductory lesson
  • Courses for different ages and levels of knowledge
  • Discounts for packaged lessons

  Disadvantages

  • No certificate of completion, although much more important – acquired knowledge, ready-made projects

  SkySmart training programs:

  Website development course is designed for students aged 12-18. In the process, the child will be able to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and also complete 2 full-fledged projects for their portfolio – a resume generator, a T-shirt store.

  Curriculum Programming in Python is suitable for children aged 10-18. Step by step, students will understand the basic terms and concepts, begin to perform practical tasks, moving on to more complex topics.

  Digital Literacy Course for Windows for kids just getting started with the digital world. It will help you learn how to create presentations, spreadsheets, work with office programs, learn the basics of video editing, and also learn the principles of cybersecurity.

  3

  Teaching children to code and make games

  XYZ Junior

  XYZ School has a new promotion – up to 50% discounts on all courses and annual programs. The discount is valid until June 28 – there is time to choose the right direction in training.
  This is your chance to master a sought-after profession and get into game development – XYZ has training in 2D, 3D, game design, programming, special effects and business. Some courses will start soon. You can find the same one at the link.

  • Duration: 14-29 months, program dependent;
  • Cost: 91 760 ₽ — 232 800 ₽, depends on the program;
  • Format: group online lectures, practical tasks;
  • Age: 7-17 years old;
  • Certificate of completion: not declared.

  GO TO SITE

  Destinations

  1. Game development, game design in Roblox Studio.
  2. Programming in MineCraft.
  3. Programming, game development in Unity.

  Training

  • Group lessons with a teacher (up to 10 people in a group), lasting 2 hours.
  • Gamification of the educational process.
  • Several courses to choose from, the ability to switch to another direction.
  • Parallel study of English in the field of IT.
  • Development of flexible skills: the ability to speak in public, work in a team, logic, creative thinking.
  • Chats with teachers, classmates, support for solving any educational and organizational issues.

  Benefits

  • Interest-free installments, discounts
  • Development of not only applied programming skills, but also flexible competencies
  • A lot of practice, work on projects

  Disadvantages

  • Less attention is paid to the child in mini-groups than in individual lessons

  Training programs from XYZ Junior:

  On the Roblox course, in 14 months a child will learn how to create their own games, universes, master Lua programming, and also learn the basics of composition, working with color, that is, they will receive a knowledge base on game design.

  Minecraft Core Curriculum is 29 months long. During this time, the child will learn the JavaScript language and be able to use it to program games, learn how to create game characters, improve school knowledge in mathematics and English.

  On the course on working with the Unity engine, the child will be able to create artificial intelligence, several games in C #, and improve their teamwork skills.

  4

  Scratch 9 Lessons0271

  Study at home

  • Duration: lessons of 30 minutes, total 64 lessons;
  • Cost: from 720 ₽ per session;
  • Age: 7-10 years;
  • Format: online tutoring;
  • Certificate of completion: certificate.

  GO TO SITE

  Direction

  Learning the Scratch language.

  Training

  • Individual lessons with a teacher.
  • Interactive presentation of material.
  • Automatic homework check.
  • Monitoring progress for parents: regular reports, open lessons are held periodically.
  • Individual learning path.
  • Flexible schedules.

  Advantages

  • Individual approach and maximum attention to the child
  • There is a free introductory lesson
  • Discounts for packaged lessons

  Disadvantages

  • One direction only

  5

  Enter IT: helping you master the digital world

  Foxford

  • Duration: optional;
  • Cost: depends on the exchange rate;
  • Age: 6-18 years;
  • Format: webinars, recorded courses;
  • Certificate of completion: not declared.

  GO TO SITE

  Destinations

  Educational programs of different levels of complexity for children of different ages (preschoolers, schoolchildren, adolescents) in such areas as programming, creating games, websites, animations.

  Training

  • Training in the form of live broadcasts or recorded lessons.
  • Emphasis on practical knowledge, work on projects.
  • Convenient selection of courses by age and skill level.
  • Parent progress report.

  Benefits

  • There is a free trial lesson
  • Installment plan, very nice discounts for registered courses
  • Many courses to choose from

  Disadvantages

  • The child will not receive as much attention as with individual training

  FoxFord courses:

  Data Science (Machine Learning in Python) – a recorded course of 24 lessons, designed for grades 7-11. With its help, children will learn Python programming, data processing, learn the basic machine learning algorithms, libraries for building ML models.

  At the Algorithmic Course for Grade 1 , students will receive a fundamental base in mathematics, computer science, and will develop logical and algorithmic thinking.

  Server administration in Minecraft is a curriculum for high school, which provides such universal knowledge as setting up hosting, installing a server core, plugins, and skills in working with an FTP client.

  6

  International School for young children from 4 to 18 years of age

  CODDY

  • Duration: depends on the course;
  • Cost: depends on the exchange rate;
  • Age: 3-16 years;
  • Format: in person or online;
  • Certificate of completion: certificate.

  GO TO SITE

  Destinations

  Fundamentals of programming in Python, JavaScript, Java, HTML, CSS, game development. Education starts already from preschool age, but there are many courses for older children. At the same time, the school actively cooperates with universities, in particular with the VMK of Moscow State University. Lomonosov, in the development of their courses.

  Training

  • Lessons for 2 hours, 1 or 2 times a week.
  • Small groups up to 8 people.
  • Programs are age-appropriate.
  • On the site you can check the availability of branches in the city.

  Benefits

  • Face-to-face training possible in the offices of real IT companies
  • Maximum practice

  Disadvantages

  • Not all courses are available online

  7

  Learn to program already at school

  Yandex Academy Lyceum

  • Duration: 2 years;
  • Cost: free of charge, with student selection;
  • Age: Grade 8-10;
  • Format: in person and remotely in 162 cities;
  • Certificate of completion: certificate.

  GO TO SITE

  Destinations

  A solid 2-year program has been developed. During this time, students will learn how to program in Python, as well as master industrial programming.

  Training

  • Due to the Covid situation, education can be conducted remotely, but the Lyceum is specialized in full-time education.
  • Lessons twice a week.
  • Groups up to 17 people.

  Advantages

  • Free and solid education
  • Strong teachers

  Disadvantages

  • No full-fledged online format, you need to have an offline platform in your city, you can check the address on the website
  • Strict competitive selection (testing, interview), you need to devote about 8 hours per week to training

  8

  Online programming course for children and teenagers

  Hedu

  • Duration: 20 lessons;
  • Cost: 32 thousand rubles;
  • Format: webinars, practical RDs;
  • Age: middle and high school students;
  • Certificate of completion: certificate.

  GO TO SITE

  Destinations

  The course is aimed at giving children general knowledge of computer science, introducing them to popular programming languages: HTML, CSS, PHP, SQL (MySQL), Java.

  How will you study?

  • Webinar training. All recordings of classes are saved, they can be viewed in your personal account.
  • Practical homework, interactive tests with expert verification.
  • Accompanying experts and course coordinators at all stages of training.
  • Protection of the final project.

  Benefits

  • Completion of the portfolio with the final project.
  • There is an installment plan
  • Ability to communicate with a mentor

  Disadvantages

  • No individual approach to the student

  Read also:
  Training 1C Programming from scratch. TOP 10 Online Courses + 5 Free Courses

  Rates from other sites:

  Codabra Online School offers several areas of learning programming for children aged 7-17: Python, Unity, Minecraft, Roblox and Scratch, there are also separate training programs for the development of games, applications, websites, digital design.

  Programming courses in Python, Java, C for schoolchildren at the Specialist training center at the Moscow State Technical University. Bauman is a great option for those who want to prepare for admission to a university. There is a large selection of training programs at different levels, you can study full-time or remotely.

  At IT Future Online school specializes in private 1 on 1 lessons with a teacher. The school works with traditional areas: Scratch, Minecraft, programming sites and web services, game development, web design. There are also courses on 3D modeling, video editing, video blogging.

  Children from 5 years old are accepted to the Shkodish programming school. In individual lessons, children will be able to get basic computer literacy, master the Microsoft office suite, as well as Scratch, Kodu Game Lab, Python, and learn how to make websites.

  Children from 5 to 15 years old attend the Codim School. It offers age-adapted learning paths that allow you to master the necessary base, gradually moving on to more complex topics – block programming, coding, robotics, graphic design, 3D.

  The RobX platform specializes in robotics. There are traditional courses on Minecraft, Scratch, as well as specialized courses on the basics of electronics with Microbit boards, game development on the Arduboy console, creating an autonomous vehicle in the Duckietown gym, parametric modeling, C ++ programming.

  Algorithmika is an international network of educational institutions that provides a foundation not only for programming, but also for mathematics. It implements both online and face-to-face training with centers in 300 cities. There are courses on computer literacy, visual programming, blogging, graphic and game design, game and website development, Python development. In addition, there is a separate department of mathematics with courses for different age groups, including discrete mathematics.

  The Moscow School of Programmers offers comprehensive IT training and fundamental programming knowledge for 3 years. The school has been operating for more than 20 years, its students have repeatedly become winners of Olympiads and world champions in robotics. The training center cooperates with the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the Higher School of Economics, and the Phystechpark.

  EasyPro Academy is an online school with a personalized approach. The child is engaged with his personal tutor. There are several popular areas to choose from: Python, Scratch, Java, JavaScript, Unity, Roblox Studio, Django. Based on the results of the training, he will be able to receive both a universal knowledge base and career guidance: Python or Java developer, web programmer, etc.

  RoboLab’s Unity course provides kids ages 12-17 with an excellent knowledge base on game development. Training takes place in mini-groups in the format of webinars. Students will study in detail the interface of the game engine, the basics of C # programming, the principles and paradigms of OOP (object-oriented programming), and will gain practical experience in creating a shooter and platformer.

  The Pixel Children’s School offers both individual and group lessons. The site specializes in teaching programming and robotics. In addition to online courses at Pixel, children can also improve their knowledge in the format of a summer school, online camp, face-to-face lessons in Moscow and other cities of the country.

  Codemika teaches children throughout the school – from grades 1 to 11. The main goal of the platform is to give the child fundamental knowledge of IT technologies and prepare him for admission to a specialized university. Spotlight on Scratch, Python, Java.

  Z-Mind is another programming school that combines different formats: individual and group courses, the ability to study at home. In addition to standard areas and game development, there are interesting curricula for creating bots for Telegram or Vk, as well as for finding vulnerabilities and building information security as part of the White Hacker course.

  On the ProgKids platform, you can sign up for individual lessons with a teacher or choose an independent learning format in which the child will learn from video lectures and instructions without the help of a mentor.

  Hello World School specializes in personalized learning. A free trial lesson is offered to determine the level and interests of the future student, to choose the best program.

  On the Python course from Tut Good, the child will be able to master one of the most popular and promising programming languages ​​with a personal mentor, create their first scripts and technological projects – a blog, a robot.

  A small computer academy at the TOP center aims to give the child universal skills that will definitely come in handy in the future. For children aged 9-12, a course has been developed that teaches them to perceive a computer not as an entertainment gadget, but as a tool for development and creativity. The guys will get website building skills on WIX, Canva, HTML5, CSS, master LEGO robotics, learn how to create gadgets on Arduino. This course also includes a module on 3D modeling, designing virtual worlds. Students will create their own 2D games on the Unity engine, gain the skills of a game designer with the ability to create two-dimensional and three-dimensional animations, short cartoons. But that’s not all. Also, the guys get a base on development (Kodu, Construct3, Python), designing and prototyping mobile applications with augmented reality, learn how to create and promote video content on Youtube, will be able to program a microcontroller on Micro:bit, get acquainted with photo and video editors, master photo / video tools processing, artificial intelligence technologies, neural networks, big data.

  The educational plan for 13-14 years old largely duplicates these modules, but provides in-depth knowledge on the topic.

  The Credo platform offers courses in the most popular areas: a basic Scratch course for children aged 7-12, website development (from 9 years old), Python and Java (from 10 years old). These curricula will help you master the universal knowledge of the developer, improve analytical and logical thinking, improve school performance, and also lay the foundation for your future profession. On the course on creating websites, the student will understand the basics of composition, typography, website designers, and layout. While studying Java, he will be able to develop algorithms, write, test and debug code, create animations, games, get acquainted with the PyCharm development environment in Python lessons and gain experience in creating his own mini-games.

  Codologia is an online platform for children that works in 3 areas: computer literacy, PL, digital design. The SP faculty consists of the following modules: Python, C# + Unity, C++, Java + Android. At the Faculty of Computer Literacy, you can start learning pixel art, CoSpaces, Mit AppInventor, Scratch, Construst, Kodu. The design department teaches Gimp, Sketch Up, Blender, Krita, Inkscape, video editing and processing.

  The course from the Definit platform is based on the capabilities of the Pictomir environment. The courses are suitable for children 5-8 years old who are just getting acquainted with a computer and programming. This is an excellent introduction to the topic, which will teach the rules of interaction with electronic gadgets, introduce concepts such as logic, programs and software products, algorithms, loops, operators, blocks, language syntax.

  X-Lab is a unique educational format from TOP Academy aimed at the comprehensive development of a child: creativity, creativity, leadership qualities, logic, critical thinking, increasing the speed of learning and much more. There is face-to-face/online training.

  The Minecraft programming curriculum from Aitigenio is designed for children from 9 years old. Graduates will learn how to develop their own objects and worlds, improve their knowledge in mathematics. Teachers try to find an approach to each child: they use exciting videos, simulators, game teaching methods. In addition, all the necessary materials are collected on a digital platform, so parents do not have to buy textbooks and manuals.

  Programming Games for Kids with Scratch for Beginners on Udemy is an affordable video course that will provide skills in creating computer games and programs, understanding the basic principles of development, using a structural approach, using markup, coordinate grid, degree measure of angles and other special tools.

  A 2-year general course from the Unium federal network will help you take the first step towards a prestigious profession. It will lay the fundamental foundations, understanding the principles of OOP, creating algorithms. After completing the course, students will be able to master the actual programming languages ​​used by most modern developers of software products for computers and mobile devices, create user interfaces, understand numerous technical aspects and design work. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to create projects in Python, C# and Javascript.

  Read also:
  Teaching English for children. TOP 25 Online Courses + 3 Free Courses

  Free courses

  Fundamentals of C Programming. Tasks in Stepik developed in collaboration with the YoungCoder website. It is designed for students in grades 6-7, it will clearly talk about the syntax of the language, in the course of practical work it will teach you how to solve algorithmic problems.

  YouTube channel of the Pixel School, which contains a lot of practical video tutorials on creating games, programming, and preparing for state exams in computer science.

  YouTube channel of the ITGenio school, in which, in addition to game development and programming language, there are also video tutorials on solving olympiad problems, special courses on learning Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, 3ds.

  Harvard CS50 is a legendary Harvard prep course in JavaRush adaptation that can be recommended to high school students.

  YouTube channel of Oleg Shpagin with a huge selection of video tutorials in different areas.

  Box Island is a cool game app for learning to code.

  Code.org is an international educational platform in English.

  Which programming language to choose in 2022?

  Teaching programming for children. TOP 25 Online Courses + 7 Free Courses

  Read also:
  Learning to program in Java from scratch. TOP 20 Online Courses + 7 Free Courses

  FAQ

  What is programming for children?

  Naturally, a 5-year-old child cannot program a neural network or write code for an online store or landing page. To teach children programming, there are special “children’s” languages, with which kids begin their journey into the world of IT. Today, most children start learning with the Scratch language. In middle and high school, Pascal is added to them, as well as languages ​​​​that are already fully used by professionals: JavaScript, Python, Java, etc. If a child learned Scratch, algorithms, development principles in childhood, it will be much easier for him to start mastering more complex, high-level languages ​​(group C, Kotlin, etc.) and specializations as a teenager. At the same time, with a sufficient base, already at the age of 12-13, a teenager may well choose web design, Android or iOS development.

  Why does a child need to learn programming?

  Programming skills are called the “new literacy” for a reason. The ability to handle digital, Internet technologies is an indispensable skill in 2022 and in the 21st century as a whole. Without it, it will be much more difficult for a child to succeed in the future. IT professions are one of the most promising career paths and it is unlikely that this will change in the coming decades. In addition, knowledge of the PL today is also necessary for many other specialists: analysts, marketers, scientists, representatives of the medical and construction industries. But learning programming languages ​​in childhood is not only a contribution to a future career. This is a huge contribution to the overall development of the individual. Here are just a few examples:
  1. Motivation to study. When a child learns mathematical and physical formulas at school, he most often has no idea where and how he can apply them. Therefore, he does not really want to study them. Programming teaches you to solve specific problems with a clear result. The same knowledge in mathematics and physics in this industry finds its specific application. And often in an interesting game form. It is worth adding to this the English language, which is an indispensable skill of a modern developer – and we get the result: programming will help to interest the child in several subjects from the school curriculum at once.
  2. Development of logical, analytical thinking. To create even a simple program or game, a child needs to build logical chains, think through the sequence of actions. On such tasks, children learn to analyze events, structure thoughts, organize their actions and tasks, and find relationships.
  3. Self-realization and creativity. Many parents today worry about the fact that their children are constantly sitting on TikTok, other social networks or spending hours playing online games. You are unlikely to be able to overcome this interest, but directing it in a creative direction is quite realistic. Agree, creating your own game with unique mechanics, drawing a character is much more fun than just a game. And so the child will be able to combine his hobby with development.
  4. Creative thinking. Development is not only technical knowledge and strict logic. The implementation of any task has several solutions. Therefore, this activity also teaches the child extraordinary and non-linear thinking, the search for different solutions.

  At what age to learn programming?

  Small children learn new things much easier and faster, so you should not delay the start of learning. Most of the training centers offer an initial course for children 6-7 years old, but if you wish, you can also find schools that deal with the smallest – from 3-5 years old. Most importantly, choose a pace and intensity that is comfortable for the child. The basic programming skill forms the foundations on which the child will then begin to build his career guidance. So, if you think that IT is only for adults, change your mind and enroll your child in courses as soon as possible.

  How to choose a school or programming courses for a child?

  In this article, you will be able to evaluate a large list of training centers and online sites, which is sure to have what you need. I will tell you about the important nuances of the choice:
  1. Format of training (online, face-to-face, group or 1 on 1 classes, webinars, workshops, video lectures, etc.). You know your child and can understand which option will be more effective for him. Someone likes to communicate and will be more motivated in group classes, other children are shy and feel more comfortable either in individual lessons or without a teacher at all. Also in our selection, we focused on online platforms, although there are schools in the ranking that offer a blended learning format. If you are inclined to offline, then we recommend that you pay attention to the Engineering Institute of the Moscow State Technical University. N.E. Bauman with excellent opportunities for further admission or the CrushPro school. If you’re not sure what to choose, testing out multiple formats helps. Fortunately, many schools have begun to provide free access to one or more lessons. Try it and your child will tell you which option he likes best.
  2. Read reviews. Beautiful promises and a stylish website design do not always correlate with the professional work of the school, so be sure to read what alumni write on independent sites.
  3. Direction. Programming is a very general term for a wide range of specializations. After the child receives basic knowledge on the topic and computer literacy skills (working with the office suite, the ability to make presentations in PowerPoint, protect their personal data), you should think about choosing the direction of coding. It can be website development, mobile development for Android or iOS, Game Development, Web design, cyber security, etc. Typically, such courses are selected based on the interests of the child. But if he himself has not yet decided, you can try several routines or test lessons. You need to understand that the directions are very different. So, game developers will learn Unity engines, Unreal Engine, Game Maker, PyGame modules, while the future front-end developer will master HTML, CSS, and JavaScript layout.

  Read also:
  Learning to program in C++. TOP 20 Online Courses + 10 Free Courses

  Summarizing

  The requirements for IT professionals are constantly growing. If 5 years ago a semester was enough to study the minimum base for employment at the lowest level in the company, today employers expect much more from newcomers. In our selection, we have collected a variety of courses: elementary, advanced, intensive, optional.

  You can find the best option, get trained and get a professional qualification. If you want your child not to spend years in universities, but to get a promising skill with which you can quickly start earning money, start your own business, these courses will be a great start.

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  Online programming courses for kids ⭐ Digital Academy

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  Link

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  1 750 ₽/month

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  0.0

  750 ₽

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  10 months

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  CODDY

  0.0

  750 ₽

  –

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  web mastering

  CODDY

  0.0

  750 ₽

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  Python programming for kids

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  0. 0

  3 500 ₽

  –

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  Creation of sites in HTML, CSS, JavaScript for children

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  3 500 ₽

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  –

  School website

  Programmer

  Rebotica

  0.0

  59 940 ₽

  –

  –

  School website

  Game developer

  Rebotica

  0.0

  59 940 ₽

  –

  –

  School website

  Programming in Python

  Foxford

  0.0

  4 430 ₽

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  6 months

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  Programming is one of the skills of the future. RBC Trends analyzed the new forecasts of Russian and foreign futurologists at the end of 2021 and came to the conclusion that in a few years the ability to code may come in handy even for journalists or linguists. For example, such combo professions as “data journalist” or “digital linguist” will appear.

  Source: www.pexels.com

  And in Russia, according to the estimates of the Ministry of Digital Development, there is a catastrophic shortage of IT specialists: the market lacks at least 500,000 workers in various areas of information technology. This means that programming skills will be in demand for many more years and it makes sense to learn this already at school. That is why programming courses for children appeared.

  When and how to start teaching programming to children

  The ability to write code in the near future may become as much a skill as the ability to read or write. Therefore, a child can start mastering the code quite early. There are courses adapted for kids 4-5 years old.

  Source: www.pexels.com

  Courses are divided into age groups, because there are peculiarities of information perception and memorization at different ages. The younger the child, the more his learning is like a game. Also, all course producers try to develop programs with a clear goal, for example, to learn how to create a cartoon or a game, an application or a website. So it is easier for the child to maintain motivation and to reach the final of the program with interest.

  Will my child be successful in his professional life because he started coding at the age of 5? Of course, there is no definite answer here. It is difficult to keep a child’s constant interest in something. Rather, we are talking about a useful activity, the fruits of which will help your specialist of the future to better understand the profession and adapt to the new world.

  Read also:

  Financial literacy courses for children

  Oksana Guler

  5 min.

  Today a child can start his way in IT in different directions: learn programming languages ​​in general or with an emphasis on a specific language, master web design, game development or robotics.

  At the basic programming courses your child will learn to:

  • think like a developer and turn any task into a team;
  • write code in Python, JavaScript or C#;
  • work in some frameworks and libraries.

  If your child likes to spend a lot of time on the computer or gadgets, programming can be a great and rewarding hobby for him. Below we talk about courses that will help him take his first steps in development.

  A selection of programming courses for children

  First steps in development
  

  The course is designed for schoolchildren 7-10 years old. During the training in the first module, your child will learn about the device of a computer, learn to work with basic programs: mail, Word, Excel, Internet applications. In the second module, your future developer will get acquainted with the world of programming and learn how to create games and cartoons in Scratch. The third module is dedicated to programming in Minecraft.

  Duration of training 11 months, 46 lessons in the program. At the end of each module, your child will defend the final project: a presentation in PowerPoint, a game, a game block in Minecraft.

  Tuition for the course:

  43 200 ₽

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Duration

  11 months

  Demo access

  Yes

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  Yes

  Feedback

  yes, from the teacher

  document at the end

  certificate

  Go to course page

  Computer literacy
  

  Classes will be interesting for children from 8 to 10 years old. Course participants will learn how to work with a graphic editor, mail and cloud storage. Also, children will be told how to make working at the computer safe and how to find useful information on the Internet.

  The program consists of 4 thematic modules and is designed for 4 months.

  Tuition for the course:

  21 000 ₽

  Installment:

  1 750 ₽ ×

  12 months

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Duration

  4 months

  Demo access

  No

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  Yes

  Feedback

  Yes

  Go to course page

  Online Programming Course for Beginners
  

  The course is useful for novice programmers, students, schoolchildren and beginners. You will learn how to create websites in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. You will understand how to set up a server and build teamwork.

  The program lasts 15 days and consists of 18 lessons. The course includes lessons: “The float property” and “Why do we need React?”. At the end of the course, you will pass a test and receive a certificate.

  Tuition for the course:

  1 900 ₽

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Duration

  1 month

  Demo access

  No

  Learning Format

  webinar

  Hometasks

  yes + tests

  Feedback

  yes, from the teacher

  Internship

  No

  Help in finding a job

  No

  document at the end

  certificate

  Go to course page

  Programming for the little ones
  

  The course is suitable for kids 4-6 years old who can already be without parents for some time and are passionate about games on their phone or tablet. On the course, your child will learn how to program in Scratch, create their own mini-games and cartoons, work with graphics and sounds. Your future programmer will try teamwork and improve their counting and reading skills.

  Training lasts from 10 months and is divided into 10 modules. The duration of training depends on the chosen tariff: you can study individually or in a group, online on weekdays and weekends, offline on weekends or according to an individual schedule.

  Tuition per hour:

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Duration

  10 months

  Demo access

  No

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  No

  Feedback

  yes, from the teacher

  document at the end

  certificate

  Go to course page

  Fundamentals of programming and algorithms
  

  The course is adapted for students aged 5-7. Your child will start learning object-oriented programming and start coding in CoffeeScript, a simplified version of JavaScript. And he will also understand the basics of digital literacy and safe use of the Internet.

  Training lasts 3 months. The duration of training depends on the chosen tariff: you can study individually or in a group, online on weekdays and weekends, offline on weekends or according to an individual schedule.

  Tuition per hour:

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Demo access

  No

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  Yes

  Feedback

  yes, from the teacher

  document at the end

  certificate

  Go to course page

  web mastering
  

  The course is designed for children aged 11-14. Your child will master HTML, JavaScript, PHP, CSS and learn how to create beautiful and functional websites. Also on the course, students will deal with the algorithm and the creation of sites in practice, independently create an interactive image gallery and publish their project on the Internet. And also get acquainted with web layout tools.

  Training lasts 3 months. At the end of the course, your future webmaster will make a graduation project – a website based on a ready-made design layout.

  Tuition per hour:

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Demo access

  No

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  No

  Feedback

  yes, from the teacher

  document at the end

  certificate

  Go to course page

  Online Programming Course for Kids and Teens
  

  The course is suitable for middle and high school students, including those planning to become programmers. Your child will understand the basics of web development, learn HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL. And also get acquainted with the Java programming language.

  The training lasts 20 hours and includes 20 lessons. At the end of each lesson, your child will do homework to reinforce what they have learned. Classes are online and available for recording. The school also offers a VIP rate with individual lessons and feedback from the teacher.

  Tuition for the course:

  32 000 ₽

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Duration

  1 month

  Demo access

  No

  Learning Format

  video lessons

  Hometasks

  No

  Feedback

  No

  Internship

  No

  Help in finding a job

  No

  document at the end

  certificate

  Go to course page

  Python programming for kids
  

  The course is adapted for children and teenagers aged 10-14. Your child will gain basic Python programming skills, deal with conditionals and mathematical functions. And he will also learn how to make useful applications, for example, a calculator.

  The course includes 12 lessons that take place online and are available in the recording. At the end of the course, each student defends the final project in the form of a project in Python.

  Subscription fee:

  3 500 ₽

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Demo access

  Yes

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  Yes

  Feedback

  Yes

  Internship

  No

  Help in finding a job

  No

  document at the end

  certificate

  Go to course page

  Creation of sites in HTML, CSS, JavaScript for children
  

  The course is suitable for children and adolescents aged 12 and over. In the first module, your child will learn the basics of web development and master HTML and CSS. In the second module, a block on programming in JavaScript awaits him. In the final module, your future web developer will understand the ReactJS library and develop his own high-speed one-page website.

  The course consists of 36 lessons and is divided into 3 modules. In each module, your child will do homework to reinforce the material.

  Subscription fee:

  3 500 ₽

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Demo access

  Yes

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  Yes

  Feedback

  Yes

  Internship

  No

  Help in finding a job

  No

  document at the end

  certificate

  Go to course page

  Programmer
  

  The course is designed for children and adolescents aged 8-16. The course teaches basic and advanced programming, working with Tkinter, games and chat bots.

  The course program contains 7 modules, as well as the creation of projects and their presentation. The lesson plan is drawn up taking into account the individual schedule, and the program itself adapts to the interests of the student.

  Tuition for the course:

  59 940 ₽

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Demo access

  Yes

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  Yes

  Feedback

  Yes

  Internship

  No

  Help in finding a job

  No

  document at the end

  No

  Go to course page

  Game developer
  

  The course is designed for children and adolescents aged 8-16. The course will teach you how to work with the Roblox platform and the Unity platform, create and test games. Also, course instructors will tell you how to create objects, work out special effects and write scripts for character interaction with the environment.

  The Roblox Platform Training contains 6 modules and the Unity Platform Training contains 4 modules. The program includes practice, the lesson plan is drawn up taking into account the individual schedule, and the program itself adapts to the interests of the student.

  Tuition for the course:

  59 940 ₽

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Demo access

  Yes

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  Yes

  Feedback

  Yes

  Internship

  No

  Help in finding a job

  No

  document at the end

  No

  Go to course page

  Programming in Python
  

  The course is suitable for students who want to learn Python. In the classroom, your child will get acquainted with the syntax of the Python language and create their first programs, learn to work with the libraries time, random, turtle. He will also be able to create his own chat bot using the telegram API, openweathermap for telegrams and discord.

  Training lasts 1 academic year and includes 24 lessons. After each lesson, your child will complete homework to reinforce the material. Classes are online and available for recording.

  Tuition per month:

  4 430 ₽

  Difficulty level

  for newbies

  Duration

  6 months

  Demo access

  Yes

  Learning Format

  online

  Hometasks

  Yes

  Feedback

  yes, from the teacher

  document at the end

  No

  Go to course page

  Read also:

  Robotics courses for children: opening the door to the world of programming

  Oksana Guler

  5 min.

  Our children will live in a world where being able to code will probably be as important as knowing English is now. Therefore, today teaching children to program is an excellent reserve for the future.

  Why programming is the new literacy and why teaching it to children

  The ability to program is as important as the ability to read. These are the requirements of the market and the new world. We analyze the HSE report “Universal Competences and the New Literacy” and explain why and how to teach a child to program

  Computer literacy skills help anyone to solve everyday and professional tasks. According to a study by the Open University of Israel, programming stimulates creative thinking and forms the ability to learn. The authors of the report “Universal Competences and the New Literacy” compare the development of computer literacy with the stages of development of literacy as the ability to read, write and count.

  There are two stages in the history of literacy:

  In the first stage, the text becomes part of the infrastructure. They occupy a central place in people’s lives. The text was used as a tool for creating laws and developing strategies. This is especially true of land laws, which began to be drawn up in the form of written texts instead of personal certificates.

  In the second stage, the text becomes an integral part of everyday life. Through mass literacy campaigns since the 19th century, most people have learned to write and read. Literacy helped to access information in newspapers describing events, leaflets with recommendations for farmers and accounts to track debts. The more people mastered the skills of reading and writing, the more widespread literacy was to become.

  Computers first become part of the infrastructure when they are used by the government for the census. Universities, airlines and the banking sector have been using computers since the 1950s. Around the 1980s, computers became available to most people, and knowledge about computers began to penetrate from the fields of narrow specialists into the lives of ordinary people. People were more likely to use computers when contacting hospitals, organizing government administration data, and managing education.

  Then computers become a part of life. The ability to write a simple program or code is gradually becoming a basic skill. Programming and computational thinking expand the possibilities and become a mandatory requirement for any specialist – from a physicist to a journalist. The ability to read and understand computer code is becoming more in demand, so programming is moving from specialized knowledge to universal literacy. This is the literacy of using modern tools of communication and work – computers. And if this is an aspect of literacy, then it needs to be developed from childhood.

  Programming develops computational thinking. This is a set of techniques for solving problems in computer science, but applicable in any field. For example, computational science helps in education. A special platform collects data on student activities. Using the data, the teacher tracks underperforming tasks in order to create a new curriculum.

  Computational thinking teaches you to formulate a problem, look for a solution and analyze it. Programming is part of the computational mindset and the most efficient way to master it. For example, before programming, we analyze and break the task into subtasks. Programming concretizes computational thinking and can become a tool for gaining knowledge.

  The four main components of computational thinking

  (Photo: Krauss, Prottsman 2016)

  Jean Piaget, a constructivist pedagogical ideologue, proposed the idea that children learn faster when they form their own ideas about what they see and draw their own conclusions, and not when they are told how they should perceive the world. Children are not passive recipients of knowledge, but on the contrary, they construct it themselves.

  Seymour Papert, a programmer and one of the founders of the theory of artificial intelligence, added: effective learning occurs when a student creates an object that is meaningful to him, be it a sand castle or a theory. Constructionism combines two types of construction: children construct things in the real world and construct new ideas in their heads. Two types of construction create a continuous learning spiral: when a child has new ideas, he constructs new things in the real world. Programming helps children bring these ideas to life.

  Through programming, the child develops computational thinking. Computational thinking helps children develop problem-solving skills, creative thinking, learning and collaboration skills.

  • Develops problem solving skills

  Programming and computational thinking help children learn network relationships: communicate in chats, video conferences, social networks. When solving complex problems, children use four main components of computational thinking: decomposition, pattern extraction, automation, and abstraction.

  Teaching children to code is not about becoming programmers in the future. The goal of programming is to prepare children for computational thinking, which will help them confidently cope with complex problems of the 21st century that have no unique solution.

  Children will be able to apply “computational” approaches in different contexts and disciplines. If a child has learned to decompose a large problem into small fragments, find similarities in different elements, identify and eliminate insignificant details, build fragments into a single algorithm to obtain a result, he will be able to solve problems in any discipline.

  Economics of education

  Heads of IT companies on education: “Every child should become an expert”

  • Stimulates creative thinking

  Mitch Resnick, head of the research team that developed the Scratch programming language, believes that creativity can be sustained, nurtured and stimulated.

  At the computer, children consume information, play games, and only a small part of the time invent and create something of their own. The trend began to change with the proliferation of programming tools for children, such as Scratch, Alice or Kodu. With the help of such tools, children learn to create games, animations, stories and artistic elements. Programming helps to support and stimulate creativity, opens up sources of inspiration to express your ideas and reveal your personality.

  MIT Media Lab Professor Mitch Resnick explains why it is important to teach children not only to read with new technologies, but also to create them

  • Develops the ability to learn

  By learning to program, children learn to think in a new way. If the written program does not work or does not work as the child expected, he has to figure it out and come up with a solution to the problem. The child begins to understand new ideas and learns to learn.

  Compared to other learning activities, programming is a gentler and gentler process. Working with code helps to learn from your mistakes and does not cause discomfort if children make them. For example, a child might cancel a command to fix a bug in the code, make edits, and try something new. Thanks to programming, children are no longer afraid of mistakes. Here’s what the mother of the girl who worked at Scratch said:

  • Computational participation

  A child begins to appreciate learning to code when he expresses himself through a product that he can show to others. This approach is referred to as “computational participation”.

  Professors Cafai and Burke described computational participation in Linked Code: Why Kids Need to Learn to Code. They believe that computational participation is about solving problems and developing intuitive systems with and for others. Exploring the cultural and social nature of human behavior using computer science concepts, practices and approaches. For example, working in groups and using other people’s codes.

  Through collaborative programming, a collaborative environment can be created in the school. Programmed games or stories that a child creates can connect different children to each other.

  Canadian charity The Learning Partnership leads the way in computational participation. They bring together businesses and educators to create coding education programs for primary school children

  • Stimulates learning motivation

  In a traditional classroom, the teacher gives assignments and the students solve them. If children have intrinsic motivation to learn, this approach will work, but not for everyone. At the same time, children have almost no time and resources for self-expression. Computational participation helps solve this problem through personalization and reliance on intrinsic motivation.

  Personalization. In programming, children personalize projects by “adding themselves to them. ” For example, in the Scratch program, you can add your photo and voice recording. Personalization engages in learning, makes it more interesting and motivating.

  Reliance on intrinsic motivation and interests. Through programming, you can use the internal motivation of the child, and not use the system of external rewards. For example, Scratch selects individual projects to show on the homepage, instead of direct rewards in the form of points, points, or stars. Children are happy when their project is chosen. The idea behind this approach is to motivate others by giving them new ideas. The user profile does not say how many times his projects appeared on the main page, but only on how many projects the child worked on.

  The usual result of programming is a project. The child immediately sees whether the program is working or not. If it doesn’t work, he tries to understand what needs to be learned to complete the project. The student is motivated, it is interesting for him to look for answers to questions to which the teacher does not know the answer, but he can definitely help find them.

  According to a study on the development of computer thinking, a formal setting develops systematic thinking and approaches, while an informal setting helps children develop motivation and identify areas of interest. The ideal environment should combine both. The spread of technology blurs the boundaries between formal and non-formal education. The teacher no longer needs to “pass through himself” all educational programs – the students themselves build new connections with the world.

  Professors Cafai and Burke created two learning environments to evaluate the differences between structured learning and extracurricular environments. In each of them, students created digital stories with the same teacher for ten weeks.

  According to the results of the study, in the extracurricular environment, fewer children completed their projects, but made them harder and bigger. The students in the club used more creative programming skills and collaborated twice as much with their peers. At the same time, for those who are just getting acquainted with programming, a structured lesson will be more effective.

  Comparison of classroom and club learning environments

  The authors of the report “Universal Competences and the New Literacy” suggest supplementing the classroom with making, programming activities and trips to technology parks.

  Making. Educators bring children together in extracurricular activities to create physical or digital projects – making. Creating a real product gives students an incentive to learn, the opportunity to apply knowledge in practice and understand what else needs to be mastered.

  Based on the philosophy of making, schools can be created. For example, in 2011, Brightworks School was opened in San Francisco for children from 5 to 15 years old. They use a fully project-oriented approach to teaching children there. In the classroom, students make projects, for example, they build a “Children’s City”.

  Programming clubs for children are being created all over the world. They are based on the CoderDojo movement, which encourages communities to create free-access programming camps called dojos. For example, in Russia there are two international free clubs run by volunteers CoderDojo and Code Club.

  Programming activities. At these events, participants are given materials to teach programming lessons themselves. It remains for the teacher, parent or child to gather other children together and start learning. For example, Code.org, a non-profit organization, hosts three popular international coding events, the Hour of Code, Code Week EU, and the Bebras Challenge.

  Hour of Code is an hour-long learning program designed for all ages in over 45 languages. The Hour of Code is held in 180 countries.

  Code Week is a two-week event for children organized by volunteers around the world. Code Week is held in 50 countries. Almost 1 million people took part in 2016 in Europe.

  The beaver competition is held every year in 38 countries for children aged 8 to 19. Under the terms of the competition, each participant is given 45 minutes to complete 18 tasks in the field of information technology. The organizers do not require special programming skills, so everyone can handle the tasks. The competition is held on the basis of schools with the support of teachers. The winners receive certificates and prizes.

  Children’s technology parks. These are educational sites for schoolchildren. Technoparks install high-tech equipment to motivate children to study design and computer technology.

  For example, Quantorium is a network of children’s technology parks in Russia. Now there are 24 technoparks in 19 regions of the country.

  Why teach children to code

  1. Programming and computer skills are the new universal literacy as the ability to read or write.
  2. Helps specialists of different disciplines in their work. Workers with programming skills are more in demand in the market.
  3. Develops computational thinking. Helps to solve problems, make decisions and analyze them.
  4. Supports, nourishes and stimulates creative thinking. Helps to come up with new solutions and projects.
  5. Develops the ability to learn, correct mistakes and search for new areas of knowledge.
  6. Unites and helps to find a common language with other people.
  7. Motivates children to learn, ask questions and seek answers.

  ---

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  Is it possible to saturate the IT market by teaching programming to children

  Programming in Ukraine is a fishing rod with which you can catch oily fish. Many programmer dads understand this, so even before the birth of their first children, they begin to fantasize about how a three-year-old daughter will write her first script in JS. After all, if 53-year-old Obama succeeded, what can we say about children who absorb knowledge like SpongeBob? Especially if the programmer father is sitting at home, and the cabinets are bursting under old textbooks on C ++, Unix and TCP / IP.

  Raise a programmer out of a child

  How realistic is this? On this issue, the debaters are divided into two camps: conservatives and progressives. The former believe that a person is born with certain skills and lives with them all his life. The second is sure that everything can be learned.

  For a long time science was on the side of conservatives. This upset those to whom genetics said: “Not in this life, my friend!” – something that others don’t have” . Although, of course, conservatives also have a hard time: finding and developing your talent is another task. But over the past 30 years, more and more attention has been paid to this topic, which has resulted in studies that have been framed in bestsellers like Talent is Overrated and Talent Code. It turned out that not only genetics: you can very radically pump the brain and body in any direction, if you approach it competently and create the necessary conditions. So, who knows, maybe my cat will still be able to be taught to parse XML (those same paw-scraping movements at the tray).

  Cognitive development of children

  Children think in symbols and images – otherwise they would not play boring (from the point of view of adults) games with soulless objects, which in their imagination necessarily come to life. It would seem – here it is, abstract thinking! But abstract thinking requires more – the ability to use concepts, to operate with complex abstract concepts and conclusions, the ability to understand generalizations, to be able to abstract and build connections between phenomena and concepts.

  So, symbols and images alone will in no way attract abstract thinking, without which there is nowhere in programming. First you need to get hold of at least logic.

  According to Piaget’s theory, a child under 4-7 years old still cannot fully use logic. For example, it is difficult for him to keep two concepts about the same situation in his head at the same time. If a four-year-old girl is shown a picture with eight dogs and three cats (she is able to identify cats and dogs on it), and then ask – “Are there more dogs or animals here?”, then she will most likely answer “there are more dogs.” This is because it is difficult for a child to focus on two subclasses and a class at the same time.

  So the logic will start to give soot only from the age of seven. Until that time, it remains only to be content with symbols and images.

  In the period of 7-11 years, the child begins to properly use the logical apparatus. But it is too early to talk about abstract thinking at this time: it begins to develop with might and main only at 11-12 years old, allowing the child to make generalizations, put forward hypotheses and assumptions. At this age, the tomboy’s thinking allows him, finally, to fully break away from specific objects.

  That is, the optimal age to start learning how to program a spherical child in a vacuum is 7-8 years old. This hypothesis is confirmed by the intention of the UK Ministry of Education to introduce programming in schools from the age of five. Isn’t it too early? Not at all. It is unlikely that anything will prevent teachers from introducing programming concepts gradually, layering more and more new concepts from year to year. After all, why not go through “Hello, World!” back in childhood? In addition, in schools, from the first grade, they begin to teach mathematics, a very abstract science. If a child feels comfortable in arithmetic lessons, then for sure he will be able to carry out the same calculations in computer science lessons. Only not in a notebook, but on the screen.

  Does this approach work?

  How to know. For example, Maxim Zaslavsky, who started programming at the age of 7 thanks to his father, already by the age of 13 felt that he had seriously advanced in programming: he started with Visual Basic 6, then got acquainted with HTML, and at the age of 9-10 he was already studying C#. Now he is studying computer science at Princeton University, studying ASP.NET and is preparing to release a couple of sites: for the university and for local musicians.

  Maxim himself advises parents to come up with something more visual as a pet-project for a child, where there are more pictures, in order to intrigue. In this regard, the search engine loses to some colorful game. Maxim’s story is a successful example of childhood programming that led to something.

  On the other hand, having a father who is a programmer and a mother who is a sysadmin does not guarantee a bright future in Silicon Valley. An apple does not fall far from an apple tree only if the apple tree grows on a plain, and not, say, on a hill or rock. Children are not at all like their parents, both in character and in interests. Of course, the family influences the child and there is a possibility that he will bend towards the ancestors, but it can also be the other way around: the child, after looking at dad and mom sticking out at laptops every day, will think: “Well, no, I’d rather move more and communicate with people, I’ll go to the realtors! “.

  A child may choose a different path both out of protest, in spite of the parent’s occupation, or simply because, for example, he would rather play the violin than shovel code. And it’s quite possible that for every child who got a computer and textbooks and became a programmer, there will be a child who had all this, but did not become a programmer. And there are many examples of people around who have been taught the piano since childhood, and then they hate it all their lives.

  Maybe we teach children the wrong way?

  If you rely on schools with their constantly yawning computer science teachers, prodigal flowcharts and languishing processors, then there will be no business. The development of a child as a programmer in such an environment occurs not thanks to, but in spite of. Obviously, the quality of teaching needs to be improved. The only problem is that schools, like any state structures, are too inert for quick and high-quality transformations.

  It’s not good to wait by the sea for the weather – that’s why parents who want to raise a programmer choose the path of home education: they either teach on their own or invite a mentor once a week. Such an approach cannot fail to yield at least some fruit. Based on the same principles of “10,000 hours”, “deliberate practice” and “practice makes perfect” that come through from many books and studies on the topic of ability and talent, the child will be doomed to improve his programming skills. And not only a child.

  Personnel shortage in the IT market

  To understand how to solve the shortage of specialists, let’s look at how the USSR satisfied its personnel shortage in the field of science.

  After all, on the one hand, with something, but with science in the USSR, everything was in chocolate. When it dawned on the ruling elite that technical education should be raised in schools, many universities of the Union began to create faculties of general technical disciplines and labor, which could train qualified teachers.

  In 1956, the production of “Young Technician” began. Ten years later, a magazine on children’s technical creativity “Modelist-Constructor” began to be published. The young soviet not only got the opportunity to enroll in the design bureau at the school, but, starting from 1968, he could take part in the regular all-Union competitions of rocket modellers-schoolchildren. A real design paradise – just have time to collect building materials from landfills for design activities.

  Yes, and the humanities faculties were bursting with crowds of people willing and paid, so it was even easier to enter technical specialties where you need to think, in a sense, than others. All cards in the hands of the future scientist!

  But was it a great science?

  Here is what Alexander Nikonov said about this in his book “Behind the Façade of the Empire”:

  On the one hand, everything looked great. The number of scientists in the USSR grew steadily. Students aspired to science, there were competitions for graduate school. On the other hand, I myself worked in science, and I don’t need to tell stories about advanced Soviet science. I know firsthand about dozens of useless research institutes that prepared projects and reports that no one needed. I know about the chronic lag of our science from Western science. I know that the drop in the level of knowledge among university graduates, which many are now complaining about, did not begin yesterday.

  Nobel laureate in physics Vitaly Ginzburg spoke about science in the USSR:

  No need to idealize Soviet science! Indeed, in some areas, such as physics and mathematics, she was at a very high level. Well, this is understandable: the communists needed a bomb from physics, so the physicists had a lot of money. I remember when the Americans first detonated the atomic bomb, my salary immediately tripled. But there were completely failed areas in Soviet science, the clearest example of this is biology, cybernetics.

  Obviously, the Soviet approach did not work. They tried to take it in quantity: go out onto the Soviet street, throw a stone – you will hit an engineer. They tried to take the quality – it was not possible. Even throwing all its resources into armaments and science, the USSR could not catch up with the West. Although it would seem that at that time the children, and then the students, had all the cards in their hands.

  Will it be “great IT”?

  All these initiatives of parents and government programs sooner or later run into the same problem – the human factor. Don’t feed one with bread – let him dig into electronics, don’t touch the second, leave it by the canvas, seduce the third with the programmer’s salary, and he, the scoundrel, having all the trump cards for moving to IT, will sit in the scientific research institute, growing his algae, because he it is interesting.

  Will the mass popularization of programming among children be able to raise their level of development and broaden their horizons? 100%. Will a tomato grow from a sunflower seed if you plant it in a greenhouse, give it textbooks on tomato science and take care of it like a tomato? May be. Genetic engineering works wonders, and a person is perfectly able to adapt and adapt. Another question is whether it will bring him pleasure. For where there is no reward in the form of pleasure, there is no long-term progress.

  So trying to teach a child, if not to teach, then at least to acquaint a child with programming is a noble cause (a mean tear of nostalgia for the “Encyclopedia of Professor Fortran”). Well, then everything will depend on the level of democracy in the family and the desires of the child himself.

  As for the saturation of the IT market, there have always been few intelligent people, so the prospect of satisfying the shortage of personnel in IT should be considered more in terms of increasing the number of coders who could perform simple and routine tasks than in terms of increasing the number of real programmers.

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  what is the use – School of programming Pixel on vc.

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  Can a student at the age of 6-7 start learning programming? We have collected 5 reasons to send a first-grader to courses on creating games and websites.

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  About 75% of children in Russia attend extracurricular activities. Most often, parents think about how to entertain the child: they give it to dances, football or to a music school. Using the Pixel school as an example, we will talk about the benefits of alternative activities – extra-curricular lessons for children aged 6–7 in programming and robotics.

  Professional developers often start learning the basics of programming from school. According to the Stack Overflow developer survey, over 54% of professional programmers have written their first line of code by the time they are 15 years old. And before that, they attended classes in computer science and mathematics with interest.

  Programming is a sought-after and promising area that requires a lot of time, effort and energy. The earlier a child is immersed in IT, the higher the likelihood that he will become a first-class specialist. And if in the future the child chooses another profession, learning to program in any case will give useful skills for adulthood. Now let’s see what skills we are talking about.

  Solve problems yourself

  Children improve their problem-solving skills as soon as they take on their first task. The ability to cope with difficult or new situations is problem solving. In the context of programming, coders constantly challenge complexity. IT practice requires children to:

  • break tasks down into small, manageable subtasks;
  • set priorities;
  • formed hypotheses;
  • achieved their goals through difficulties.

  This method of problem solving is also applicable in many other areas. For example, scientists form hypotheses and test them one by one, and in management, all work is built around solving problems.

  Creative thinking

  Creative thinking is the skill of generating unique and fresh ideas. In the classroom, children not only learn programming languages, but also design 3D models, create computer games, and even program robots. Depending on the chosen training program, the child can develop creative thinking through:

  • Robot assembly. The robotics course involves working with the WeDo 2.0 constructor from Lego Education. In the classroom, the guys, together with the teacher, design some kind of mechanical object, connect it to a computer and program it to perform actions (for example, walk or move limbs).
  • Computer games. Students develop their own games using the visual programming designer Kodu Game Lab. The guys create landscapes and characters, write game scenarios and learn to distinguish between genres in the game industry.
  • Programming languages. Schoolchildren of 6-7 years old program with the help of children’s language Scratch Junior. It looks like a Lego constructor: programs are assembled from multi-colored “bricks” – blocks. This language is much simpler than the popular Java and Python, making it ideal for coding at a young age. In the classroom, children invent and “revive” characters, create game backgrounds, draw interactive postcards with musical effects, and also program simple games.

  Love for mathematics

  A child’s school performance often suffers because of the exact sciences. Mathematics requires concentration, patience and logical thinking. And these skills are not easy to develop. Then children’s programming can come to the rescue. Coding games and assembling robots literally bring up in the child a love for the exact sciences.

  The student has the opportunity to independently create computer games and “revive” the designer, only for this you need to improve mathematics a little. Believe me, this is a strong motivator for a child of 6-7 years old.

  Children use mathematical principles in the classroom in a playful way that makes learning formulas and solving problems fun and understandable.

  Perseverance skill

  Programming is one of the few professional disciplines in which it is perfectly acceptable to fail. Not only is a failure immediately recognized—that is, the program “breaks” and doesn’t work as intended—success literally cannot be achieved until all errors have been worked out.

  The simplest programs require the developer to understand a set of problems and solve them; otherwise the code will not work. In the classroom, children often face similar problems, then the teacher joins the work and teaches the child not to give up and find solutions.

  With all the disappointments and setbacks comes the real payoff – resilience. Successful people in life are not those who avoid failure, but those who see it as a useful signal.