Hi all,

My 8 year old is asking if he can learn how to program.

I’d like to support this, and it seems like it’s not a transient interest as he’s been all over scratch, and using things like minecraft commands for the last year. I have an old (pre 2017) MacBook Air I can set up for this. How do I / what would you advise I set up for him, to a) keep him safe online (he’s 8!) and b) give him the tools he needs in a structured way.

  • Lem453@lemmy.ca
    5·
    2 years ago

    The full Harvard CS50 course is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8mAITcNt710?si=rTa1zOkY2REnlXDe

    This is the course all programmers have to take before they get to take the real programming course. The purpose is to introduce programming concepts in a way that essentially anyone who is interested will be able to understand. The instructor is fantastic.

    Not exactly geared towards 8yo but if you have the time and inclination, you could go through some of these videos to see how the topics are presented and then try to introduce those topics yourself to your child. Or at least look for resources that introduce them like the comment above talking about scratch.

    Or better yet, maybe you both do these lectures together and learn the fundamentals of programming without getting bogged down in a specific language or with specific syntax. I’d bet that will become a core memory for any child.