Programming for 8- and 9-year-olds?

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Permalink Reply by Dale Ehrhart on March 17, 2010 at 8:04am

I've used scratch a lot and I love. Last winter/spring I ran an afterschool scratch club and this summer I'm teaching a pair summer camps.

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Permalink Reply by Amit on March 20, 2010 at 11:35pm

Hi Dale, we will like to know more about your scratch club. pl send me a msg if possible.
rgds
amit

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Permalink Reply by David Kapuler on March 17, 2010 at 8:25am

Alice Story telling, easier then scratch free too for PC... http://www.alice.org/kelleher/storytelling/

Here is an example... http://cyber-kap.blogspot.com/2009/02/alice-storytelling.html

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Permalink Reply by BJ on March 21, 2010 at 12:55am

I would love to introduce them to Python. Thanks for the suggestions!

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Permalink Reply by Matt Perreault on March 21, 2010 at 5:45pm

Scratch is amazing I've been using it in my middle school IT classes for the past 3 years. It's a fully drag and drop interface so students can learn through exploration. Apart from being a programming language scratch is also an online community of learners. Students can share their creations online, download other programs to see how they were created, and modify / remix them.

Here is a game one of my grade 7 girls created this year.
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/pjd08/900842

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Permalink Reply by Justin Eames on March 24, 2010 at 7:13am

Have you found a good version of Logo to use with your students?

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Permalink Reply by BJ on March 24, 2010 at 8:44am

Well, with middle school students I've used FMS Logo and they did alright with that. I've also used Squeak Etoys with them and it worked. But I don't know if those are as accessible to 8 year olds.

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