Teaching Primary School Students Programming?

NotesSensei asks: "Recently I was teasing the teacher who runs the computer club in my sons' primary school: 'You teach the kids only how to use software but not how to make software.' Today I got an email: 'OK, you're in: teach them programming.' Now I wonder what language should I pick? My first lesson will be the board game c-jump, but after that? The contestants are: Kids programming language KPL (ab VB.net derivate; Java using BlueJ; Greenfoot (and the BlueJ); and HTML. Does it sound like I'm on the right track or should I try something completely different? We are looking at primary 3-5 (that's 10-13 in this part of the world). Where can I find inspiration for the curriculum?"

Scheme? *ducks*

[AslanTheMentat (896280)]

Some may argue (and probably will) but I have always found Scheme to be an interesting language to lets kids play with because of the "instant gratification" of an interpreted language's "read-eval-print" paradigm. Plus, with "The Little Schemer", which presents things in a very logical, pedogogical way, which is well suited to clever children.


The Little Schemer [neu.edu]
Just a thought...

Re:

[Sigma 7 (266129)]

Some may argue (and probably will) but I have always found Scheme to be an interesting language to lets kids play with because of the "instant gratification" of an interpreted language's "read-eval-print" paradigm.

That's a feature of the interpreter being used, not a feature of the language.

In any case, teaching a programming language requires learning it beforehand in order to understand the concepts of the language. There was an IFComp entry called "Lists and Lists" that provides the basics on how to do

Re:Scheme? *ducks*

[Nicolay77 (258497)]

No no no, don't *duck*. You should be proud of your suggestion.

Scheme is a beautiful language and for children and math and physics people, is easier to understand than traditional C syntax-based languages.

In fact, the main benefit of using a language from the lisp family is that it makes you a better programmer for the rest of your life, no matter what language you use in your job.

In a related note, I postulate LOGO, because that's what I learned when I was a child and it really helped me to grok programming. Beautiful programming.

Re:Scheme? *ducks*

[rolfwind (528248)]

Yes, the read-eval-loop of lisps are great - in fact many advanced programmers say it boosts their productivity once they get into it (wish I could find the ML of the Crash Bandicoot team again...)

But how about Logo Programming language?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_programming_lang uage [wikipedia.org]

Another lisp dialect that is very easy for the kids. I find the 3 choices of the submitter (not the parent) a little too restrictive - and the limited experience I have with VB taught me it's absolutely horrible as a programming language. Variable settings I specified to be done wasn't because of some arcane rule or something else. Beginning programming languages should be as straightforward as possible.

Re:

[Christopher Cashell (2517)]

There is actually absolutely nothing wrong with your suggestion. In fact, it's being used already, although admittedly it's mostly at a slightly higher level (High School).

I strongly suggest checking out:

The Teach Scheme Project [teach-scheme.org]
How to Design Programs [htdp.org]

The first is a project designed around teaching programming through scheme, and the second is the text book for the project (full text online, free).

Re:

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

Another partial vote for Scheme here. All programmers should know either Lisp or Smalltalk; ideally both. Some form of assembly language (or C which is more or less PDP-11 assembly, with some syntactic sugar) is useful for writing optimised code, although much less so now that modern CPUs don't much anything like a PDP-11 internally, but that can come later.

If you teach anything other than Lisp or Smalltalk first is like trying to teach someone to write prose using Enid Blyton as your reference. Event

Karel

[tansey (238786)]

The freshmen level OOP class that I took taught us by using BlueJ and Karel [pace.edu]. I loved it, thought it was fun and easy to use, and really helped teach solid OO concepts. I recommend it highly.

Re:

[Lehk228 (705449)]

i'm going to second the bit on using karel

karel is an excellent way to teach programming without having to go deep into the math parts of programming that would be over the average elementary student's head

Re:

[Amazing Quantum Man (458715)]

They started us on Karel back at UCSC in '82.

We disguised a landmine as a beeper and blew him up.

BASIC?

[iamhassi (659463)]

My first programming language was BASIC. There's just something simple about PRINT, GOTO, END that made sense as a child.

Visual Basic might not be a bad idea either, least it's a language they can build on and easily use in Windows if they decide to pursue programming in the future.

Re:

[AuMatar (183847)]

I'll second some form of basic. I do think I'd avoid visual basic though- it requires an extra step in thinking (the event model). Some modern form of QBASIC would be perfect.

Re:

[dosius (230542)]

QBASIC...Yeah. It's a cross between C/Pascal and BASIC in some respects. You can program it like traditional BASIC too. Nice IDE besides. I wish there were an open-source version that ran on the same config (8086 with 512K RAM, DOS 2.1) as QBasic, but my own attempts to code even something as simple as MBasic failed miserably. :/

-uso.

I find BASIC confusing

[Asmor (775910)]

Maybe I'm just weird, but I find BASIC very, very confusing. I look at BASIC code and it's like I can't even grok it. I can't see the program's layout or flow or anything...

I think it's the relative lack of parens/brackets/etc. I don't like the whole "similar to English" thing when it comes to programming.

Kid's Programming Languages

[justanyone (308934)]

Unless they're vaccinated, don't give them MUMPS [207.192.157.194]; if you do find a nice Doctor (Like Dr. Pascal [gutenberg.org]), 'cuz Pascal [trieste.it] was fun for me in College.

If they like noises, Squeak [gatech.edu] is good, but the cogently verbiaged might prefer SmallTalk [lesser-software.com] in a group. For those speech impaired, knowing there's other people who Lisp [alu.org] would be good.

The mean ones will abuse Snobol [fit.edu] in Winter

The A.D.D. kids will probably like the feeling of Euphoria [rapideuphoria.com] they get from their first

Of course, you could teach them a very nice language with a horrible name, Brainfuck [muppetlabs.com].

Or, you could just look Here [jvoegele.com] for a comparison of popular programming languages.

Re:

[dcapel (913969)]

I think its clear [pbm.com] assembly [slashdot.org] is the best [slashdot.org] place [slashdot.org] to start learning [wikipedia.org] to program [smith.edu].

HTML

[Chasa (998060)]

I know my little cousins in that age group would love to make their own "pretty" web-pages. They could each make their own page linked from a page about the class.

What about a snake?

[cjhuitt (466651)]

Have you considered python [python.org]? It has an interactive shell, which will let the basic concepts of programming come through. Also, you could take the first parts of How to Think Like a Computer Scientist [greenteapress.com] (freely available and modifiable) and adapt them to the age level. The first few lessons should be fine, although they might need expanded somewhat.

Alternately, perhaps something more graphic-oriented would be desirable. If it were still around and supported, I would suggest Apple's Hypercard [wikipedia.org] program. It appears there are some clones [wikipedia.org] out there also, although I have no idea how good they are. (The first alternative listed says it is popular with educators.)

Good luck.

CeeBot

[muridae (966931)]

http://www.ceebot.com/ceebot/index-e.php [ceebot.com] I downloaded the demo a while back, and found it amusing and actually pretty usable. If I remember correctly, even the demo supported simple classes and structs and I think the classes even allowed overloading operators. The basic concept is to allow students to write simple programs that make a little robot do stuff. Take a look at it, it may be too pricey for the school but their links section has some other resources that might also be useful, like CodeRally http: [ibm.com]

Pascal

[ToasterofDOOM (878240)]

At my school we have Visual Studio and all manner of modern, high tech tools at our disposal, but we still use turbo Pascal to teach programming, and I love it. It truly is a marvelous language, and while easy, can do anything a more complicated laguage can and shows all the steps of real edit-compile-etc programming. Perhaps a modern version of pascal would be a good choice, I would pick Pascal along with a good instructional book. The best part is that pascal is structured so as long as they follow the

Comments

[Sigma 7 (266129)]

Now I wonder what language should I pick?

Are you teaching a regular stream of students or the "gifted" stream? Also, which grade level are you teaching? The answers differ depending on what you want to do.

While you did mention the answer in the posting, it's still a bit vague. 10-13 years is a large age group - 10 year olds may minimally grasp the concept, while 13 year olds may need something a bit more complex.

My first lesson will be the board game c-jump, but after that?

You can do something much che

HTML a typesetting language???

[DrJimbo (594231)]

Sigma 7 said:

FYI, HTML is a typesetting language - not a programming language.

I fully agree with you that HTML is not a programming language but it sure as heck is not a typesetting language either. It is, as its name implies, a markup language. TeX is a typesetting language and a very good one at that.

Be that as it may, I think that teaching HTML could be a good way to introduce primary school youngsters to programming. I agree that it lacks all of the charm and complexity of a real programming

Python.

[pedantic bore (740196)]

There are several pedagogically-suitable languages... but if you want the one that best reflects the methodologies in current use in the "real world", Python is probably the best bet. Java with the proper wrapper is also good.

Languages like Scheme, Forth, SML are interesting and cool but the ways of thinking they teach are, for better or for worse, not part of the mainstream. Better to teach good OO methodology and design.

Squeak

[sydbarrett74 (74307)]

Squeak [squeak.org], which I believe is a Scheme derivative, is geared towards children or at least people with minimal coding facility. I would also incorporate this with HTML. Being able to grok HTML is very handy even if all you're gonna do is put a blog up on MySpace....

Re:

[TVmisGuided (151197)]

Squeak is actually a Smalltalk [smalltalk.org] derivative.

[/pedant]

Re:

[chris_sawtell (10326)]

Squeakland [squeakland.org] is the site to go to. Squeak is a pure Smalltalk with many extra objects and methods. It gives 'children of all ages' hours of fun and games, while teaching one of the most productive programming environments ever created. A programming foundation using Squeak can lead directly to a professional programming career using SmalltalkX [exept.de] or Cincom Smalltalk [cincom.com]

If the teacher finds the Smalltalk paradigm incomprehensible I'd suggest (s)he try Ruby. [ruby-lang.org] The author, quite truthfully, claims it's a 'surprise-free

kids programming language

[laktech (998064)]

I would recommend that you take a look at http://www.alice.org/ [alice.org] The site pretty much speaks for it self. The development takes place inside a 3D graphic enviorment. I think kids will find this very interesting and they can instantly see their results. There is also a text book that may be purchused, however, I'm not sure about the price.

Python and Blender

[LetterRip (30937)]

Teach them the basics of python then turn them loose in Blender 3D. They can do game scripting, it is a real language, and they can use the logic buttons for things that they don't need or want to program.

Also there is predone games of a wide variety of types that they can play with, take apart, and rebuild into their own.

LetterRip

Re:

[LetterRip (30937)]

"That's probably the most complicated thing they could possibly do, just because of the blender interface. They should stick to something really simple. That KPL suggestion was pretty good. The old standby Logo isn't bad either."

The age range is 10-13, not 5-7. We have a number of individuals in the 10-13 range who have self taught themselves Blender and the game engine. If you use the Blender cheat sheet, you can learn the important parts of the interface in a few minutes. Or if in a class it can be tau

Wrong question

[swillden (191260)]

IMO, you're asking the wrong question. Almost any programming language will work, what you need to find is an appropriate curriculum and supporting materials. What's needed is a series of fun programming projects that start out very simple, but progress appropriately and catch and keep the kids' interest. The curriculum needs to be constructed around a specific language, so it can introduce specific language elements as needed to support the programming projects, but the language used is nearly irrelevan

justBasic

[Billly Gates (198444)]

Mainly because its free. Schools have a strict budget and I doubt they have a few licenses for VS for VB. Java is free but I would not recommend it. I tried java without knowledge of c/c++ and had to drop the course in my freshmen year of school. After taking C++ I recieved an A for my java programming course in object oriented programming. Even a hello world program is complicated if knowledge of public and private and strange syntaxes without meaning (if your new to programming) are used.

The link is here [justbasic.com]

My Curriculum

[wynand1004 (671213)]

I teach computers at an international school in Tokyo Japan. My students vary in age from grade 6 to grade 9. As you can imagine, they also vary in English language ability. Here is my curriculum:

Grade 6: Drape [christianthompson.com] - A drag and drop programming language (No longer free but you can downloa it from my homepage).

Grade 7: Game Maker [gamemaker.nl] - A more complex drag and drop programming language created by the same person who created Drape.

Grade 8: Kids Programming Language [kidsprogra...nguage.com] - A BASIC-like programming language with eas

BASIC, Logo, ToonTalk

[tverbeek (457094)]

Like most geeks of a certain age, I cut my coding teeth on BASIC, which in its traditional implementations (TRS-80, Apple ][, C64) was nicely interactive, but probably too boringly textual for Kids These Days.® Don't know how the "modern" versions of it compare.

Logo [mit.edu] became available to me after I was "too advanced" for it, but certainly deserves a look as the "other" classical language for introductory programming.

I've heard some good things about Toon Talk [toontalk.com].

Or there's always BrainFuck [muppetlabs.com].

language not important

[fermion (181285)]

I hate not answering the question ask, and frequently am annoyed when someone answers a perfectly reasonable question with a litany of why the question is wrong, but in this case I believe you are off track.

Programming, as we all know, is establishing a standard process, while allowing for certain deviations, in a directly or indirectly machine readable code. There are several layers of abstraction involve, the most obvious is the abstracting of they physical process, but one must also abstract concepts

No, the language is important

[try_anything (880404)]

Don't make them learn anything they can't grasp the need for. That eliminates Java, C++, and a host of other languages that impose burdens that pay off in performance, large-scale maintainability, portability, and other things that aren't of any use to the kids.

In the best case, everything they type will have meaning and value to them. Instant feedback is also a plus. That means your best bet is a dynamically typed languages with a REPL. Many other posters have suggested languages/environments with co

That isn't an answer

[MarkusQ (450076)]

First off, you didn't really answer the question (I'm assuming here that this AC post was written by fermion, since it contains the same types of odd grammatical errors as the grand parent post). Have you ever actually worked with kids?

I have, and my experience is much more in accord with the standard view of childhood as a period of intense learning and rapid acquisition of new abstractions than it is with your picture of children locked in a world of simple and concrete structures. If you want to teac

Teach them Haskell.

[tietokone-olmi (26595)]

That'll weed out those who have no commitment. It'll also make the handful of math-oriented people in the class more aware of the connections between mathematics and computer science. It's not like people these days are encouraged to get rid of the bad habits they picked up with J. Random Wanker Language or anything. Also, interactive programming with hugs. Who doesn't like hugs?

Hell, maybe it'll teach kids better habits (like focusing on the algorithm and on getting a working program first) than some heavy mittens language like Python or Javur. The error messages could probably be a little much for 10-year olds though. Maybe Helium, a Haskell variant geared for education and without some of the more esoteric features, would suit that better?

As an Educator I Recommend Piaget

[Proudrooster (580120)]

As humans brains develop, they go through many developmental phases along the way. Piaget came up with a developmental stage theory [massey.ac.nz]. The most important thing to remember is that primary kids are in the "Concrete Operational Stage" and can do well with concrete ideas like numbers, colors, linear procedures, and facts. However, kids at this age (especially boys, who typically develop slower than girls) can not handle abstract concepts. An abstract concept would be something like the equation 'X + Y = 4' or 'if x+5 > y+10 then'. As long as your programming languages don't get too abstract the kids should be able to process it fine. I find that HTML doesn't really process in kids minds until 7th or 8th grade.

Also, you have to apply the 80/20 rule. We are all different and our brains develop differently. But Piaget's theory applies to 80% of kids. I like to use the Lego Mindstorms Robots. The robotics invention system supports big blocks e.g "Turn Left" or small blocks e.g. "Turn on Motor A, Turn off Motor B, Wait 5 Secs, Turn on Motor B". The Legos give kids the change to try to work with abstract problems, but they can drop back to the concrete stage very easily by using the cause and effect process.

I believe that someone mentioned Logo. That is a great 'cause and effect' type of programming language in which kids can create a small abstract program and then see concrete results. Allowing the young brains to move back and forth easily between concrete and abstract is the key to teaching programming at this age.

Hope that helped.

Re:As an Educator I Recommend Piaget

[Trizor (797662)]

As one of the 20 (My fifth grade teacher actually read Piaget and showed it to me and labeled me as such) I look at my classmates and see that now (12th grade) they still struggle with symbolic concepts because they were codeled with the concrete for much too long. The example is physics, where the solutions are often entirely symbolic, many students have trouble with manipulating and thinking abstractly in symbols. However in earlier classes they are encouraged to plug in concrete values as soon as they learn them, and I was actually repremanded for using symbols (My Father is a Professor of Physics and when helping me with math homework at a young age insisted on my use of symbols instead of concrete numbers.) in Chemistry I when we were working with heating and cooling and temperature. While the concrete numberse were initially easily grasped by the class, problems quickly arose when they forgot the meaning of each number because it changed problem to problem and began to forget the theory behind what they were doing. The result was that every single class member could work any type of problem they had seen previously on memory of the motions to go through, but had no clue as to what they were doing and could not solve any new type of problem based on the theory they knew. In short: While they may still be developing the ability to understand abstractions, the sooner they begin learning the better they will be for life. You'll be doing them a favor by introducing them to the concept of a variable and a general solution.

Logo - visible results with simple programs

[egburr (141740)]

I like logo. You can get graphical results with a simple program. It is easy to see how minor logic changes make huge differences in the results. And for the first few dozen exercises, the assignments can be to draw specific pictures. Starting with simple shapes (square, rectangle), moving to harder ones (triangle), then even harder (circle, oval, arc). Then, more complex designs (a triangle on a square, a circle inside a square, etc.). A christmas tree is good for an introduction of subroutines. Then you c

I'm using Logo

[dbc (135354)]

Logo. Good, old fashioned Logo was designed to teach programming to elementary age kids. We home school, so I work with Logo with my 7yo daughter. She loves it. And logo is built on a lisp engine, so there is significant power underneath. We use Terrapin Logo, FWIW, and like it. There are other choices. Terrapin has an interface to the Lego RIS robotics system, and also the FischerTechnic stuff, if you get that far. Also Terrapin has some useful lesson and teacher guide books to give you some hints o

Starlogo

[njord (548740)]

A few years ago, I as an NSF GK-12 teaching fellow at the University of Maine. Basically, University students were assigned to K-12 (non-US people, read: before college) classrooms and asked to help with science curriculum. One of the classes I was assigned to was the computer course for eigth-graders. Probably nobody remembers it, but a few years ago, the State of Maine gave all 7th and 8th graders iBooks to use in their classrooms, so the computer teacher and I conspired to teach some basic programming to the kids. In most public schools in Maine, programming is taught, even in high school, so this was almost certainly the first time any of the students saw programming, and probably the last they would be able to learn in school until college. I eventually decided to use Starlogo [mit.edu], given that it was designed to teach programming, it was available, and I have fond memories of learning basic programming on Logo on the Apple IIe. It worked as well as I could have hoped, and there were a few kids that were interested in doing more (I pointed them on to Python). Here are some things I learned that I'd like to pass on to you:

• Kids don't always remember details. This can be difficult, because most computer langauges are not forgiving in their syntax. Kids are good at picking up on details, but don't expect them to memorize things like StupidConfusingClassname isn't the same as stupid_confusing_classname.
• Kids like feedback. Thus, the read-eval-print-loop style is important toward keeping their interest.
• Related to that, the intrinsic graphical nature of logo is very engaging.
• This really just a general teaching comment (which I was totally new to when this project was given to me) - especially with totally new topics, kids will have all kinds of levels of ability and interest in the topic. It's important to have something that all of them can do, but also to have something to challenge the kids having an easier time of it. I would ususally introduce a simple topic and have everyone try it out, and then I would have a "master" level problem for the wiz kids to try.
• Robustness and responsiveness is good; kids aren't very patient, as a rule, and if the programming environment crashes, or performs slowly (and Starlogo, being a Java app, did run poorly on those iBooks), the kids will lose interest in it while they wait for the app.

I should also mention that StarLogo wasn't really being maintained when I was doing this (or it was being minimally maintained), but now it looks like someone has revamped the project with StarLogo, the next generation. Finally, whatever you end up choosing, don't teach them HTML and then tell them that it's programming. Few things irk me more than people talking about "programming in html". If you want to teach them HTML, fine, but don't let them think they're programming. By they way, youung children might have trouble with html for the first reason I gave above. The syntax is very clumsy and exacting, and worst of all, you don't get error messages from the browser when you screw it up! Anyway, have fun! njord

Re:

[MBCook (132727)]

I'd second this. I cut my teeth on Hypercard. You could make graphical programs trivially, and it was a fantastic program. It had some problems by the time I used it (System 7) such as it was only B&W and adding color made the stack uneditable.

What would I teach them today? That's a tough one. I wouldn't do VB (that's a nightmare, plus the IDE is complex). I'd say Python.

My suggestion would be to get them started so it feels like they are doing something. Write the shell to a program or a game (checke

Re:

[Billly Gates (198444)]

Hypercard! May it rest in peace sigh.

I wish Jobs would port it to OSX but Apple once again had the best early concepts of what was to come but never could market it outside their camp.

Re:

[MBCook (132727)]

Python is a true scripting language. While PHP was designed for the web ("PHP Hypertext Processor" as it is now), Python does "everything". For a GUI it has all the usual bindings available (QT, GTK, Win32, etc). Getting students to program a GUI is going to be very tough unless you use VB, as sad as that fact is. GUI programming is just very tough. Hypercard is about as easy as I've ever seen it. It's scripting language (Hypertalk) was also very English like. It's really too bad Hypercard is basically out

Re:

[daeg (828071)]

Stay away from any Macromedia or Adobe product. They make fine programs but I would think such complicated and, frankly, unpredictable user interfaces would just confuse the poor students.

Re:too young for abstract thought

[AuMatar (183847)]

Bullshit. People give kids too little credit. First off, most of them know basic algebra already- they've been solving math questions with x in the and solving for x for years. Secondly, basic programming doesn't require abstract thought- it requires you to understand boolean logic and arithmetic. Most kids can handle that by the time they're done with first grade, if not sooner.

Re:

[jawtheshark (198669)]

You, sir, were simply an exception. I was in your league too. Alas, I did the mistake of becoming a teacher 1.5 years ago (I quit, now I am unemployed). Yes, I did teach some programming. You see, I thought too that kids could do this and I was confronted with 16+ year olds that had no concept of a variable. Something I took granted at that age. So, perhaps I was a lousy teacher (I will not argue over that, I know I was a bad teacher), but they did not know what a variable was even tought they had alge

Re:

[MBCook (132727)]

Logo is another excellent suggestion. It has many basic control structures (like FOR loops) and is also very visual (which is good). With a few simple commands it's easy to make geometric shapes, snowflakes, or just color the screen with a neat pattern. For a plus, you could have them do assignments like draw a square, draw the letter "R", draw your name, draw a house, whatever.

For ease of results, Logo is probably the best suggestion I've seen yet.

Of course it's not a general purpose language (like Pytho

You can have Python with turtle power!

[YA_Python_dev (885173)]

Logo is another excellent suggestion.
[snip...]
Of course it's not a general purpose language (like Python, which I suggested in another comment).

Both are excellent suggestions, and the good news is that you can have the best of both worlds!

Simply download Python [python.org] and xturtle.py [asn-wien.ac.at] (the module is a single .py file, no need for complicated installation and no dependencies beyond the standard Python library).

The xturtle site [asn-wien.ac.at] has extensive documentation, interesting examples and, of course, screenshots [asn-wien.ac.at] (becaus

Programming is not just for programmers

[LihTox (754597)]

We don't teach elementary school kids history because we want them to grow up to be historians; we teach it to them to give them a more rounded education, an appreciation of history, a new way of looking at the world, and exposure to a subject which, even if it doesn't become their profession, might at least become a source of fun and an output for creativity.

Teach programming for the same reasons. Computers are everywhere; if people knew how to program they might have a better appreciation of how software