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This has been a super fun thing in our house: http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ It's also something a 7 year old can use on his or her own to lea

This has been a super fun thing in our house: http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ It's also something a 7 year old can use on his or her own to learn concepts and make fun stuff.

idancali 13y ago
Wow that's great. Thanks for the tip. I'm going to check it out.
couchand 13y ago
There's also Blockly [0], which you can use to build similar software. [0]: https://code.google.com/p/blockly/ https://code.google.com/p/blockly/
- idancali 13y ago
  awesome thanks for the tip, I'm gonna check it out
rst 13y ago
For Android devices, there's also MIT App Inventor, which is a very scratch-like environment for writing mobile apps, available here: http://appinventor.mit.edu http://appinventor.mit.edu In addition to basic I/O and animations, it's able to deal with a lot of the device capabilities, including SMS, GPS, dealing with the camera, and so forth. Unfortunately, I don't know of any similar environment for programming iThings --- Apple fairly famously rejected a Scratch port from the app store in 2010: http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Scratch_Viewer http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Scratch_Viewer although a "Scratch player" for Android is in alpha, and apparently, people are also working on pure HTML versions.
- dmoo 13y ago
  There is an app called Hopscotch for the iPad which is of similar structure to scratch. I can't recommend scratch highly enough, the kids at my local coderdojo really do some great stuff with it.
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
http://learn.code.org http://learn.code.org uses the same [Blockly?] interface, just tried the first few stages with my 4 year old this last week. Only problem was his general literacy; but he sat on my lap and did the thinking for the problems and I read out the text. Have used Scratch (and light-bot and various turtles) before too with an older child. learn.code.org has quite a few interesting facets, including using Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies artwork; they also integrate light-bot as one of the avenues for learning.
femto 13y ago
I'll second this. Install Scratch, then stand back and let the child lead.

This has been a super fun thing in our house: http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch.mit.edu/ It's also something a 7 year old can use on his or her own to learn concepts and make fun stuff.

idancali 13y ago

Wow that's great. Thanks for the tip. I'm going to check it out.

couchand 13y ago

There's also Blockly [0], which you can use to build similar software. [0]: https://code.google.com/p/blockly/ https://code.google.com/p/blockly/

idancali 13y ago
awesome thanks for the tip, I'm gonna check it out

rst 13y ago

For Android devices, there's also MIT App Inventor, which is a very scratch-like environment for writing mobile apps, available here: http://appinventor.mit.edu http://appinventor.mit.edu In addition to basic I/O and animations, it's able to deal with a lot of the device capabilities, including SMS, GPS, dealing with the camera, and so forth. Unfortunately, I don't know of any similar environment for programming iThings --- Apple fairly famously rejected a Scratch port from the app store in 2010: http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Scratch_Viewer http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Scratch_Viewer although a "Scratch player" for Android is in alpha, and apparently, people are also working on pure HTML versions.

dmoo 13y ago
There is an app called Hopscotch for the iPad which is of similar structure to scratch. I can't recommend scratch highly enough, the kids at my local coderdojo really do some great stuff with it.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago

http://learn.code.org http://learn.code.org uses the same [Blockly?] interface, just tried the first few stages with my 4 year old this last week. Only problem was his general literacy; but he sat on my lap and did the thinking for the problems and I read out the text. Have used Scratch (and light-bot and various turtles) before too with an older child. learn.code.org has quite a few interesting facets, including using Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies artwork; they also integrate light-bot as one of the avenues for learning.

femto 13y ago

I'll second this. Install Scratch, then stand back and let the child lead.