Hi, Matthias!
I have several years of experience teaching introductory programming
concepts to children aged 6-18 in an after school setting using free
software.
The 5-6 age range (at least with my students) was limited to drag and
drop concepts such as Music Blocks [1], Blockly [2], Scratch 1.4 [3],
and code.org. Music Blocks, Blockly, and the old offline Scratch
version 1.4 are the only popular drag and drop options that are 100%
free software that I am aware of.
Around the age of 10, I would switch them away from drag and drop
languages to Python or Lua if they were inclined through modifying
simple games and modifying Minetest mods.
I would primarily recommend Music Blocks as it can even be used offline
through a browser on old hardware. The surrounding Sugar project [4] is
also appropriate for this age group and can be found bundled with
Trisquel [5].
Blockly is more of a framework than an easy to point to resource.
Scratch is more focused on vendor lock-in rather than generally teaching
programming in my opinion as there are not resources for moving on from
Scratch within their platform.
I would also recommend the book Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer
Science and Other Improbable Things by Carlos Bueno from No Starch Press
[6] which targets ages 10 and up.
[1] https://musicblocks.sugarlabs.org/
[2] https://github.com/google/blockly https://developers.google.com/blockly/
[3] https://scratch.mit.edu/scratch_1.4
[4] https://www.sugarlabs.org/
[5] http://mirror.fsf.org/trisquel-images/trisquel-sugar_9.0_amd64.iso
https://cdimage.trisquel.info/trisquel-images/trisquel-sugar_9.0_amd64.iso.sha256
[6] https://nostarch.com/laurenipsum
Best,
Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0
https://fsf.org |https://gnu.org
On 10/26/21 1:28 AM, Matthias Kirschner wrote:
Hello Cryptie,
* Cryptie [2021-10-12 09:43 +0200]:
What do you think about adding scratch ?
It is a great way for young kids to learn algorithmic and having something fun
fast.
We use it in my association with 5y.o. so they can start fast...
BUT
1) They don't provide scratch 3.0 on GNU/Linux (it is installable but it
requires a parent able to find and follow a command-line tutorial to install it
or you can use one of the website providing it and play in a browser...).
2) it is a modified BSD licence (+/-) to limit the use of the name Scratch.
I am not 100% sure about the best approach. What do you and others here
think about it?
Best regards,
Matthias
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