Learning to Code for Kids & Beginners with MIT Scratch

Learn Programming Fundamentals that take you from a beginner to a game designer in no time!

Parents and teachers, do have students/kids who would benefit from learning the valuable skill of programming?

Anyone can code. It's not hard. In this course, through games and fun activities,  I teach the fundamental programming fundamentals that have allowed me to earn a living as a professional coder for the past 20 years. There are valuable skills that came have a lasting impact...but it's also just fun!

Here's how the course is structured:

The Platform

We'll use MIT Scratch is a free, beginner-friendly visual programming language developed by the MIT Media Lab, specifically by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group. It's designed to teach the fundamentals of coding in a playful, engaging way—especially to kids and beginners of all ages.

Section 1: Introduction

We introduce MIT Scratch and cover all the basics for getting started

Section 2: The Fundamentals of Programming

We'll review the core tenets of programming that apply to any coding language! This teaching approach is meant to give students the crucial foundation that is going to help them progress as a coder.

Section 3: A Few More Scratch Related Things You Should Know

Continuing with the idea of building a framework for success, in this section we'll review some things specific to the MIT Scratch Platform that are going to be crucial to understand as we progress through the upcoming activities in the course.

Section 4:  Creating a Meteor Math Game

The fun begins! Now we enter the part of the course where students can really expand upon that foundation we've built up in the early sections of the course and start to bring ideas to life. In this exercise we'll create a fun and engaging Meteor Math Game.

This section and the following sections include challenge files to help students learn by doing. All of the code and Scratch files will be provided for the various stages of the game so students can easily review solutions and become "unstuck" should they need help. These lessons will also help students practice/develop some of the core traits of a good programmer:

• problem-solving skills

• logical thinking

• creativity

• debugging

• persistence

• attention to detail

• deconstruction -- breaking a larger problem into smaller, more manageable parts

Section 5:  Creating a Classic Snake Game

The fun continues as student will build a classic snake game and really learn how to start bringing their own ideas to life through logical thinking, testing/debugging, and stepwise iteration.

Section 6: Final Thoughts and Challenge

Wrapping things up and launching students to new heights with their newfound knowledge and coding skills!

Help kids unlock their potential and enroll them today! Or, it's never too late for anyone to learn!

A Note from Greg:

I really hope you or someone you care about will join me inside this course to experience the joy of coding and also to unlock a valuable skillset that is super relevant in today's modern world.  These are the skills that have not only brought me a ton of joy, but also earned me income and helped me provide for my family. Anyone can code. It's not hard & in this course I'm going to help students learn the fundamentals that can unlock a whole new world of possibility. 

cheers,
Greg