Ask HN: How to teach a 4 year old to code?
4 kamphey 8 8/28/2025, 11:40:03 PM
Have you had any experience teaching a 4 year old how to code? I'm thinking about not just typing but the mindset of automation and programming. My son is in a weekly class called Kiddie Coders and they are learning directions and how to put arrows together on a sheet of paper to get someone through a series of squares.
I was thinking of putting together activities at home so he can see how to tell instructions to someone who is blind, or follow instructions like a recipe (the favorite analogy to coding seems to be cooking)
?? program robot to fetch/push food items to bowl.
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[0] : https://www.scratchjr.org/
[1] : https://blockly.games/puzzle
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11109739/
It highlights https://www.scratchjr.org/
So from this I think I'll use more in-person items and building literal things that have a problem, to teach debugging. Perhaps some kind of marble run. And discuss with him what he thinks will happen (the expectation) and the difference between that and what actually happens.
There's a toy called Turing Tumble that might be good too.
Turing Tumble looks a bit expensive, but might make a good birthday gift.