My kids have a great time with PICO8: http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php The fact that everything you need to build a g

My kids have a great time with PICO8: http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php The fact that everything you need to build a game is built-in is very key to their enjoyment - they don't need to deal with any operating system in this environment, and have (almost) everything they need to be self-contained developers. (Built-in docs would be nice..) Its interesting, having watched the evolution of PICO8, to see the mass explosion in creativity around the scene, and I have observed a key to its success - by putting constraints on what you can do and how you can do it, while also filling in the inner space of those constraints with excellent tooling, you give people freedom - within a limit - to create amazing things that push those limits. You can read more about PICO8 (if you're interested) in this wonderful 'zine, which reflects the culture of the scene very well: http://pico8fanzine.bigcartel.com http://pico8fanzine.bigcartel.com Another big hit is LOAD81, from antirez: http://github.com/antirez/load81 http://github.com/antirez/load81 This, I think, is better than QBasic, in that it has all the same functionality in the IDE, but teaches them a better language: Lua. Plus you can install it almost everywhere you can't install QBasic. Anyway, in case any other HN'er out there is interested in doing stuff like this with their kids, give PICO8 and LOAD81 a try .. they're both, in my opinion, great ways to get young minds programming ..