Below are five apps to get your kids coding:
Code Spark Academy (iOS, Android)
Code Spark Academy has been designed to teach children aged 4-9 all the basic coding skills they need and much more. Code Spark Academy understands that we all learn in different ways and incorporates this into the app ensuring there is an activity for everyone with a mix of puzzles, games and step-by-step creative projects, as well as offline printables, all designed to help kids master coding. A really nice feature is daily activities based on your child’s progress, so no matter how fast or slow they learn every day offers a new motivating challenge.
Screen Play – Code your Story (iOS)
With Screen Play kids guide Sam, Zemo and Liam through their own individual worlds helping them to understand instructions, completing puzzles, all while learning to code. Screen Play is an engaging story based app with lovable characters that will introduce your children to programming concepts and build their confidence as they progress through each level and they are faced with new challenges.
Move the Turtle. Learn to Code (iOS)
Move the Turtle has been designed with children aged five and older in mind with the help of a friendly turtle they will learn the basics of creating programs and using intuitive graph commands, skills that they will then be able to use to create their very own programs. With colourful, fun graphics and the friendly turtle as their teacher children work their way through tasks designed to be fun, engaging and at the same time educational. Move the turtle covers all the key areas that your children need to know to code with confidence including, how to use graphics and sound and how to plan complex activities that are composed of simple elements. You will quickly find yourself wowed by just how much your children have learnedt and how easy they find it to create simple games using their coding skills.
Box Island (iOS, Android)
Download Box Island and embark on a visually stunning adventure story game, where your kids learn to code along the way. Within just a few levels kids quickly begin to apply coding basics such as loops and conditionals with confidence to help them progress through the story. As they move through the story kids are introduced to new coding concepts such as sequencing, debugging and pattern recognition, all at a pace that makes it easy to digest the information and build confidence that they can then apply to different coding situations.
https://youtu.be/8EUptFxVsLA
Hopscotch: Make Games (iOS)
Hopscotch is an app that not only teaches coding in a fun and easy to understand way for kids but also then gives them the chance to apply their new skills freely and create without limits letting their true creativity shine through. To help get your kids started Hopscotch offers a wide array of tutorials showcasing exactly what is possible and demonstrates the core skills needed. The tutorials have been designed with children in mind making them easy to understand and covering topics such as how to make your own version of Pokémon Go and Crossy Road. Once they have mastered the tutorials they are ready to code freely, creating anything from games to stories and even artwork. Through the child-friendly community section of the app they can check out other people’s creations, download and play their games and even share their own projects.
