Scratch works pretty well in practice, to get across to kids that computers aren't magic: https://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/127964136013/it-turns-out-scratch

Scratch works pretty well in practice, to get across to kids that computers aren't magic: https://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/127964136013/it-turns-out-scratch-is-probably-the-answer https://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/127964136013/it-turns-ou... https://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/137374628373/scratch-is-probably-still-the-answer https://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/137374628373/scratch-is-... https://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/137376311558/scratch-is-probably-still-the-answer https://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/137376311558/scratch-is-... That's in the UK. The maths teacher was pretty on the ball here, but the main thing is it caught the kids' interest and communicated the concept of programmability. Scratch for young children, Python later and you've basically got this coding thing introduced.