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)
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.
?? program robot to fetch/push food items to bowl.
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[0] : https://www.scratchjr.org/
[1] : https://blockly.games/puzzle
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.