You should differentiate between the different aspects programming involves. I sure do see logical thinking as the most important aspect of development. Also Al

You should differentiate between the different aspects programming involves. I sure do see logical thinking as the most important aspect of development. Also Algebra is important, but well above the understanding of a younger child. If you look for example into Game Design you get a lot bigger area of interest that is combinable with programming, such as UI, Art, 3d, Sound, Story, Mechanics and Level-Design, etc. Getting them directly into programming directly will likely be the wrong attempt, because (in my opinion) programming requires a lot of frustration tolerance and if done the wrong way will spoil it for them. Also combining an existing interest with development, such as using their painted characters in a game might create interest in content creation. In our Game Design BA, we also give a summer school course for kids (12-18 years), that teaches them to develop a game in GameMaker during 2 weeks. Other visual development systems such as GameMaker might be good as well. Afaik lego also has a visual programming system for it's mindstorms system. If you you insist on classical programming languages i'd suggest python with some ui based libraries (for example pygame, not because of gaming, but because of graphics, sound and interaction aspects) or processing. I also consider gaming as an important aspect of learning. But the game has to change often, othervise it's just enjoyment to get perfect in a system that you already mostly understand. I usually reach this point after 2 to 8h in a game, because i want to understand the logic of the game. If you enjoy the story, you have to go trough the whole game usually. To reflect on the things you played and experienced is good to learn as well, but usually spoils the fun. There are a lot of games that teach logic thinking and often contain logical structures systems or train logic thinking. (minesweeper, sudoku, kerbal space programm, bridge builder games, lots of construction games (minecraft)...)