Anyone recommend coding apps for a 4 year old?

[Ahmawa]

I have decided that my DS ipad will only be used for him to learn coding than spend time watching BBC iPlayer.

I have gone through App Store and there are so many coding apps. Can anyone recommend apps they have themselves used and found helpful.

Scratch Jr

At four, unless your child is gifted, I would be looking at something playful that the child wants to do because it is fun, rather than what is best for 'learning'.

We have Osmo Coding - it is good but really pricey as it is not just an app, but combines physical elements with the app. You have scratch-like coding 'tiles' (real life tiles) that you arrange on the table in the right order a bit like a jigsaw, including attributes; in order to guide your little monster 'Awbie' around a screen maze, collecting strawberries. So e.g. you have a 'walk' tile and a 'grab' tile and a 'jump' tile; and then attributes of number (how many times) and of direction. There is a repeat tile and a if-then function.
So there are significant limits as to what you can do, logically, but it is a great introduction to the kind of logic and structure you need for coding. My 4yo enjoys playing around with it but doesn't really 'get' the finer points e.g. to increase efficiency by using the repeat function. My older child started exploring more of the (limited) possibilities around when he turned 7.

We had another good app for young children (that was fully app, no 'real life' elements) but I cannot seem to find it anymore.

Does he actually enjoy it? Doesn't he prefer CBeebies?

My kids all use scratch but not from 4. Youngest was about 6 when he started. At 4 I would download a few different apps and let him find what he likes. I would get more varied things than just coding though. There are plenty of apps which are fun and also teach kids something.

Jesus. Calm down. Your child is 4!

maybe a sandpit and some plastic beakers tbh.

My 5 year old likes Scratch jnr.

An iPad is a great resource to have, it would be a shame to limit it to just coding. We don’t use ours for watching iplayer but we do search interesting things like planets on YouTube, play maths games, letter games and just some good old fun.

We’ve used scratch and scratch jnr with ds6.

With ds though it was completely his choice to do that instead of watching YouTube or bbc on his tablet. Taking away choice at that age may well make him hate coding fast

I am a Developer and would say Scratch is great for a child but 4 is too young to grasp most concepts of coding. Playgrounds app on ipad is also good but again it is aimed at an older child.
Leave it a couple of years.

The best place to start would be something like the fisher price code-a-pillar. That helps them to understand in a concrete way what they are doing on the screen. That links very logically into roamer or floor turtle games, which can be played on websites rather than apps: scratch.mit.edu/projects/19685257/

why do you want a 4 year old to learn to code (unless he is a genius) - instead of exploring the world.

The other thing is that coding is much simple once they can read. When ds started reading we bought him a scratch jnr book that he uses from time to time

A summer born reception child could easily be still 4 and have enough reading and skills to get something out of coding if they're interested, DD certainly did lots of interesting things between YR and Y1 - mostly on studio.code.org on a laptop rather than an app. And the basic concepts of coding were certainly attainable, and had little actual interest in the physical versions but not actually had them at home.

But equally I can't actually see any value in pushing it, or even really encouraging it, beyond showing them if they ask, watching quality content, being presented with ideas, discussing them etc. are all positive activities, nothing intrinsically better in coding. In fact I'd say like much of the "academic" pushing on young kids the focus purely on skills rather than knowledge and skills can be a negative.

Not an app, but codeorg has courses for pre-reader, 4+.

Woops, cross posted with sir!

We just mentioned the same good site irvineoneohone can't hurt at all.

Why does this website have such a hard on for coding?

Get a grip, 4 year olds should be playing in the mud and eating bugs (said by a software dev (no such job as coding))

I don't agree with pushing if the child isn't interested, but if they are, I think there's nothing wrong with introducing young children to ict.
My ds loved making art on computer in reception, and learned to use Word/Excel/Powerpoint in yr1 at school. Coding came slightly later when he was 6, but he got hooked straight away.

At age 4, simply get used to iPad and phone.

At age 5, look at Scratch Jr and Alex the Robot (phone app).

Our kid is 7, and coding games in MineCraft and Roblox now.

Good to start early, but age 4 is too early.

I work in children's app development for a living and have explored the potential of making a coding app for preschoolers. In short it's just too complex trying to get across these principles to a preschool audience - as someone said above they can't read yet.

The simplest competitor app I found was Bee Bot, but I don't think my own 4 yo would get his head around it.

Because of my job, I want my son to get as much exposure to coding as possible but we're likely to do this through a code club at 7+ and maybe mucking around with some Scratch at home.

If you're looking for a good app in the meantime - Teach Your Monster to Read is fab and a great use of tablet time (Note, no personal ties to Usborne, it's just brilliant!)

www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Resources-Robot-Mouse-Activity/dp/B01A5YMCH4/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=coding+mouse&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1533740987&sr=8-3

We have this for my kids who are 5 and 6 years old. Works much better if you lay the cards out to work out the set of instructions to input and then do it rather than having them work it out on the fly - but it's nice and practical for them to use and the tiles help them work around how many "units" of forward or backward they need to do.

Not been the most played with toy around in the house - but it's been used by both of them - although the older child has taken to it more. I've not pushed it though - really should get it out with them and help them with it a bit over the summer.

There was a decent Nina and the Neurons game from Cbeebies at one point where you gave instructions to a robot on screen - but it was in the older "Playtime" app, not the newer Island one and I don't know if it's still available on the website.

My just 5 year old has the code a mouse set linked above. We just got it so haven’t played with it loads but it is good fun. I got it as a second choice to fisher price code a pillar. I decided against that as we have carpet and feedback suggests that code a pillar doesn’t run well on that. We also play Nina and the Neurons which I think is still on the CBeebies original app.