Kids of the 21st Century are surrounded by technology at all of the important steps of their lives. From using modern education software to study their syllabus to using technology to operate Virtual Reality as a gaming platform – Generation Z has it all. Coding is at the core of all of the technology and hence, coding is the tool that can develop innovators out of mere technology users.
Why Teach Coding to Kids?
Children are curious creatures. Their curiosity grows from the familiar. In an environment where a child feels safe, it will seek novelty. To get a child to be interested in any particular thing, you have to create the perfect balance between a safe, along with a stimulating surrounding. This curiosity is an extremely important aspect of a child’s development. Coding, if inculcated into a brain at its prime, that is – around the age of 5 years to 8 years when the grasping power of children is at its best – can help them develop their cognitive abilities and learn a methodical problem-solving process that resembles a machine. Through coding, kids gradually learn the art of logical thinking. It boosts their creativity and expands the horizons of their minds.
Here are 4 kid-friendly coding tips you could keep in mind while teaching coding to a child.
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Keep It Fun
And no, we don’t mean fun in a way that eventually ends up getting the child addicted. Kids tend to get bored pretty often. Coding essentially is a repetitive task. So if you want to make a kid sit down and code, you need to make it in a way that it enjoys. There are multiple software where kids can simply add a single line of code and the result are immediately visible. Which will give the kid the incentive to keep trying.
This next piece of advice is strictly relative – some kids like to work in teams or groups. Their minds remember and grasp better when their victory is shared. So according to your child’s preference, create a fun environment for it to grow and learn.
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Keep It Simple
Coding, as a lot of us know and have experienced, is difficult and tiring. Children learn a lot from their environment. If you, by any chance, code and if your child sees you exasperated over coding – it might get a negative impression about coding without fully knowing what coding actually is. So start with simple things. Teach them the concept of the algorithm with offline activities. Once that’s clear, you can move on to a block-based coding language designed especially for kids called Scratch. The slowly and gradually; according to your own child’s individual developing process, lead it through slightly difficult codes with better rewards.
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Keep Several Approaches Handy
As we’ve established already, kids get bored quite easily. That one light twinkling at the end of that one particular code might entertain them for – my best bet is a couple of days. Keeping children, entertained in a way that challenges their brains isn’t an easy task. If you want to create an innovator, you’d also have to have a mind like one.
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Dangle A Carrot
One of the best ways of keeping kids engaged is rewards. For example, you can add levels to the coding. After every level, the child will get the satisfaction of being successful and also the motivation to do more and see what’s next. After 10 levels or so, it turns out that it just made a tiny lego-robot! The technology may stride ahead but our old tricks still stay the same. Believe me, dangle a carrot.
Which Tool to Use?
Taking the first step into the world of programming is important, and doing it the right way is where we will help you. We present to you PictoBlox, the fun and easy program for coding. Learn how to code with PictoBlox, which includes a step by step guide to make the process kids-friendly.
In a Nutshell
If inculcated into a human’s lifestyle around the age of 5 to 8, coding can do wonders to the child’s cognitive and problem-solving abilities. Children are attracted to fun things which are also easy to do – but they get bored very quickly. So, in addition to making coding fun and simple, the kids should be provided with slightly more difficult tasks from time to time. This will keep their curiosity piqued. PictoBlox is the most profitable tool to take help of when trying to teach coding to children.
Feature image taken from rawpixel.com
