Coding with 7yo - where to start?

[ritzbiscuits]

While we're back at home, I want to use it as an opportunity to introduce my son to coding. We have previously explored Scratch Jr app in the last lockdown and he was pretty competent in it.

I have had a quick look online and came across Micro:bit as an option. I like the idea of him being able to link coding to something physical. Looks like there are various adds on that he would like e.g. traffic light, robot car etc.

Maybe we could progress to the standard Scratch software? Also saw Khan Academy has Hour of Code lesson for 8+.

Any experience of the above or alternative suggestions most welcome. I work in the tech industry (but not as a coder), I'm generally happy to get stuck in to learn with him as long as it's not too complicated.

I'm pretty sure my son was happily using standard scratch by 7 (jr version may not have existed then?). It did seem to give him a great grounding, and got him interested in later learning proper languages. At some point he looked at BASIC before getting started on Python. I'm pretty sure he found CodeCademey (just the free material) very useful, perhaps from 8 or 9?

Good luck and have fun!

Ahhh thanks. I've decided to do a bit of swotting on Scratch myself then will introduce him to it.

I've also just ordered a micro:bit for us to have a play with.

I contacted our local Coder Dojo and the lady pointed me to more resources on Raspberry Pi's website and Hour of Code website.

Standard scratch is very good: lots of challenges and plenty of scope for a bright child to apply creativity.

We started with Kodable and our children enjoyed it massively. Was worth every penny!

I used to run a Code Club at my children's school and used the free project resources on the Code Club website. They're very good and cover Scratch, HTML, Python, Micro:bit and more besides. See here: projects.raspberrypi.org/en/codeclub

If you're curious why the link has the words "Rasberry Pi" in it, that's because the Raspberry Pi foundation have joined forces with Code Club to share their collective resources and put them all on one platform. You don't need a raspberry pi to do the projects - most of them can just be done in a browser on any device.

Ahh thanks @cheekdeek yes I've come across some links to Raspberry Pi not using one!

I've also been recommended to a Teach Computing/Raspberry Pi course on Future Learn which teaches Scratch to primary school teachers but is also suitable for parents