Chris O’Brien recently had a great piece in the Mercury News wherein he referenced a few programs that help teach kids how to program – or perhaps it might be better said programs that help build a love and understanding of programming. As the father of three boys I think frequently about the lack of programming skills taught in schools at a young age. I believe programming should be taught in every elementary school. In Virginia for example, all fourth grade classes learn Virginia history. The fourth grade also seems like a fitting age to teach children how to program.
Some of the programs mentioned by O’Brien:
- Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/
- Roblox: http://www.roblox.com/
- Code Hero: http://primerlabs.com/codehero/
- Stencyl: http://www.stencyl.com/
