Ask HN: Teaching 4-year old about computers/programming? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Teaching 4-year old about computers/programming?

2 pointsOzzie_osman6 comments

For folks with young kids, have you found any great apps or resources on getting them started with computers/programming?

My kid is 4, so he's probably too young for things like Scratch, but I'd love to get him comfortable with computers. Since I spend a lot of my time at home working on my laptop, he'll show interest and I'll open up an empty Google Doc where he will type letters (his name, his brother's name, etc).

Would love to get him started with other foundational things, like proper typing, simple logic puzzles, etc, but nothing too gamey/addictive, and nothing that tries to push him beyond his age.

Does anyone with kids have advice on what to use?

View on HN

Sure, I went through this with all my kids. Here's one idea:

A program can be described as a schedule.

Teach him how to make a schedule (just a list of things to do, in order) and later add some simple if-else logic to the schedule.

After lunch: If I'm restless, run around in circles. Else, play some music on the keyboard.

Then talk to him about how that's kind of how computers and robots make decisions. Show him how you type if / else in your code to tell computers what to do.

Also, he's possibly showing strength at informational outlay, so get him to type more informational stuff about his family. And see if he'd like to learn how to make a list of his favorite snacks, books, toys, etc.

Programming-style logic is also a single perspective one can take on things, so just about every game teaches good logic, broken logic, etc. whether it was designed for that reason or not. You can use that for teaching, and/or he can use it for learning.

You'll be able to see whether he picks up on that and enjoys thinking in terms of logic as a natural interest, or if he's more interested in other perspectives (all of which get at specific sets of gifts).

Good luck, that's a fun age.

I have a 4-year old daughter, so I'm leaving a reply here to more-or-less bookmark this thread.

Use the upvote feature for this rather than polluting the comments

To my knowledge that feature is only available if you have 500 or more karma.

However, I could bookmark it another way in the future.

Downvoting is karma restricted, you should always be able to upvote. Confirmed by logging into an account with 8 karma

Use the up arrow next to stories, they are saved in a list under your account, privately

There is a board game called Robot Turtles (iirc) that teaches logic and functions

Reply on news.ycombinator.com