Programming options for kids

201109141502


Cult of Mac has an item about a six-year-old girl named Lim Xin Mei (above) who is learning computer programming. The article says she was using Applesoft BASIC on an old Apple II GS. Later she started using a Power Mac 7200 running an Apple II GS emulator.

My 8-year-old daughter likes to write games using Scratch, but I think I should introduce her to a text-based programming language. I thought BASIC would be good language to start with, but then I realized I just wanted to do that because that's how I started programming decades ago. Times have changed. I think Python might be a better choice.

I'm curious to know about programming languages, books, websites, or other resources to help teach kids how to write computer programs. Please post them in the discussion comments.