One of the major shortcomings our previous generation complained was on the inaccessibility to information. For them, everything was a struggle and they had to go on a pursuit to know things, adapt, work and evolve. However, that’s not the case with our generation and the ones to follow. At the click of a button, we have a world of information waiting to be explored and if you’re really into personal development for yourself or your kid, there are plenty of avenues and opportunities.
One such avenue is the world of apps – for web, mobile and tablets. From apps to order food to hire housemaids, there is an app for everything. To make things interesting, there are interesting apps to teach coding to your kids as well. On this article, we cover some of the most essential apps you need to have to teach your kids coding.
As the name suggests, this app lets your kid learn coding in the most exciting ways possible. Every child wants to spend time playing video games and this app capitalizes on it quite brilliantly. If you have a kid aged between 7 and 14 years, this app will allow him or her to develop indigenous video games and learn from it. Through self-paced quests and missions, your kid will learn coding and problem solving and critical thinking abilities.
Turtles are adorable, aren’t they? Especially when you have a game that teaches you how to code on it! This turtle takes charge of teaching your kids programming lessons and gamifies learning. With a series of tasks like reaching a star, drawing a line and more, your kid is made to understand commands and functions. The best part is that each level comes with increased difficulty to make things more interesting. Apart from the quest mode, a free-to-play option is also available for your kid to explore with the turtle.
If teaching kids programming concepts has been a challenge for you, the Lightbot app makes things simpler for you. The app is all about programming puzzles kids need to solve after going through the instructions before the beginning of each level. Each level teaches your kid a programming concept and to move to the next level, your kid has to complete the current one. Similar to Move the Turtle, difficulty increases with each level making it more challenging. This is a paid app that is available for both Android and iOS devices.
Codea is one of the more advanced apps to introduce coding concepts to your kids. Unlike the other apps we have mentioned, Codea is quite sturdy and streamlined in its approach. There is no gamification concept involved and it uses Lua programming language to teach coding basis. However, the app also ensures that your kids soon start writing their own programs and codes with consistent exposure to the application. There are a plenty of sample programs and credible resources to teach your kids programming basics and learn fundamental coding skills. The app is paid and is available for iOS devices.
Tynker is a web-based app that arrives as a comprehensive solution to teach coding to your kids. The app is similar to Scratch. However, it limits itself to teaching coding than being a tool to code. There are lesson plans and resources to engage your kids in interactive learning sessions and there are also classroom management tools and galleries that showcase programs created by other kids. This app ensures no assistance is required for your kid to learn coding and is self-paced.
So which one of our recommendations would you try out first? If you have used or come across any other interesting app to teach coding to kids, do share them on comments below.