Ask HN: How to teach a 4 year old to code?

5 points by kamphey 262 days ago | 12 comments

Have you had any experience teaching a 4 year old how to code? I'm thinking about not just typing but the mindset of automation and programming. My son is in a weekly class called Kiddie Coders and they are learning directions and how to put arrows together on a sheet of paper to get someone through a series of squares.

I was thinking of putting together activities at home so he can see how to tell instructions to someone who is blind, or follow instructions like a recipe (the favorite analogy to coding seems to be cooking)

calgoo 262 days ago |

My 5 year old is playing Minecraft and watching YouTube videos. He has now started asking about the automations, switches etc. so I'm teaching him the basics of coding, but in visual minecraft.when i asked about if and else the other day and referenced the switches he understood instantly what meant.

bombcar 262 days ago |

I’d fire up Logo. The little drawing turtle.

kamphey 262 days ago | |

Is it this one? https://turtleacademy.com/lessons/1

bombcar 262 days ago | | |

That’s the one! Well, technically an updated one; I remember this one:

https://archive.org/details/alitpttg

(Searching for “Apple II logo” is frustrating but emulators exist)

dnemmers 262 days ago |

https://www.transum.org/software/Logo/

sargstuff 262 days ago |

Perhaps something along lines of setting up / planning robot/activity path? aka (noted in other postings) scratch junior[0]; mblock botly dash[1]; code & go

?? program robot to fetch/push food items to bowl.

----------------------------------

[0] : https://www.scratchjr.org/

[1] : https://blockly.games/puzzle

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 262 days ago |

This article covers some things, I guess

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11109739/

It highlights https://www.scratchjr.org/

kamphey 262 days ago | |

this part seemed interesting:

  "The experimental cohort outperforms the control group with statistical significance in comprehending potent ideational constructs encompassing representation, algorithms, and hardware/software interplay. Conversely, the control group performs better in grasping the debugging concept than their experimental counterparts. "

But when I read further it's that the assessment had to do with a seesaw, which the control group had a literal seesaw they can use before and understand. While the experimental group was learning more abstract debugging.

So from this I think I'll use more in-person items and building literal things that have a problem, to teach debugging. Perhaps some kind of marble run. And discuss with him what he thinks will happen (the expectation) and the difference between that and what actually happens.

bediger4000 262 days ago |

There's a few episodes of the PBS show Cyber Chase you might want to watch with your kid.

There's a toy called Turing Tumble that might be good too.

kamphey 262 days ago | |

Thanks. Wow there's full episodes of Cyber Chase on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/@Cyberchase.Official

Turing Tumble looks a bit expensive, but might make a good birthday gift.

davidajackson 262 days ago |

Make it a game like the carol the robot class at stanford.

hulitu 262 days ago |

> Ask HN: How to teach a 4 year old to code?

Lock him in a room. Put him in front of a Windows 11 computer. A frien told me that it's "accessible". /s