Welcome to the third free issue of {Kids: Code}! Whether you're interested in learning how to code, or already building cool stuff, it's great that you're here - let's dig in.
This issue contains some book highlights, a look at some upcoming products, a look at the news in the coding world, and our usual vocabulary word.
If you're building something, and you'd like it featured in a future issue, send it in! Something you’d like to see that wasn’t covered in this issue? I love feedback of all kinds, whether it's questions or concerns!
One of the trickier parts of learning to code is usually knowing where to go next, so this week we'll take a look at some slightly more advanced books that you can use on your journey through the world of programming.
Advanced Scratch Programming: Learn to design programs for challenging games, puzzles, and animations
Scratch is an amazing tool for learning to code, but unfortunately it can be tough to figure out more advanced concepts with it. This book, written by Abhay Joshi, does a fantastic job of going into more intricate pieces of programming, like loops, variables, different data structures, and more.
It expects the reader to have a pretty good understanding of Scratch, and isn't really suited for beginners. If you find yourself hitting limits in Scratch, and aren't ready to jump to a full-on text coding environment, this might be the book for you.
You can grab it for free on Kindle, or order a paperback copy from Amazon. While it's possible some libraries might have this book, it's tough to say for sure. It's worth tracking down though!
Coding iPhone Apps for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Swift
Mac user? Got an iPhone or iPad? Building apps and games for them can be super fun, but getting started can be a bit confusing. This book, from authors Gloria Winquist and Matt McCarthy, helps you get up and running with Xcode playgrounds, a fun and engaging way to start learning Swift. You'll then experiment with making games, building simple apps, and more!
This book is available in many libraries, but if you'd like to own a copy, you can also buy it on Kindle - or order a paperback copy from Amazon.
What's Swift? Well, it's one of the primary programming languages used for building iPhone, iPad and Mac applications. Released by Apple in 2014, it's quickly become one of the most popular coding languages out there.
Learning Swift is a bit different from Python or Scratch, but there's benefits galore. Swift has a good learning curve for certain programing concepts that other languages might require, like types or structs, and feels similar to JavaScript in many respects. Xcode will help you write code in a way that feels fast and gives quick feedback, too!
In our last issue, we showcased a young coder named Tanmay Bakshi, who was making headlines with his work in Apps and AI (Artificial Intelligence). This issue features another one - it's amazing how quickly kids are learning today!
Meet Samaira M: 7 year old coder, speaker, and creator of the learn-to-code boardgame CoderBunnyz. She became exposed to coding at a young age when her father, who works in AI, made her a game, and she wanted to know how it worked. Fast forward a few years later, and she's picked up the craft thanks to some mentoring from her father.
She created CoderBunnyz to provide an easy and fun way for other kids to pick up important concepts, and it's become successful enough that some schools even use it now. The White House even congratulated her on her efforts and success - imagine that!
Making the Leap from Scratch
Like we mentioned above, there may come a point where Scratch might feel too limiting, or you might want more control, or you might want to run your cool new app on a different device. Python's a great language, but it doesn't always run on the same spread of devices that some other languages do. So, what're you to do?
Well, consider trying out JavaScript. It's a coding language that can run pretty much anywhere at this point, and amazingly enough, someone's put together a really great guide for moving up to JavaScript from Scratch.
Give it a whirl if you're interested! It walks through HTML, basic CSS, and JavaScript - enough to start making games and simple apps. By the end, you'll be able to create a simple 2D sidescroller game, and have a great starting point for a new language.
For the Parents
Are you a parent with a child ages 3 - 8? If you are, you might be concerned with the screen time aspect, like many other parents in 2018. It makes sense, but it also begs the question... how does your child pick up increasingly important skills without it?
Enter Taco Playbits: A magical screen-free coding toy | Indiegogo. Currently about to go over their goal on Indiegogo, Playbits are screen-less using new technology to teach important coding concepts without your child actually requiring a screen in front of them. A video does the concept justice more than text can, but check out their page linked above! It might just be the solution you were looking for. They're hoping to ship in November 2018, in time for the holidays.
This Issue’s Vocabulary Word
Type
Computers operate on data, and not all data is treated the same. In coding, a type is used to describe what a piece of data is. The most common types you'll find are Strings and Numbers, but some programming languages go deeper than that.For example, a String is something like "banana" - a word or a short sequence of characters. A Number is something like 1, 3.14, or -10. "10" would be a String, though - notice the quotation marks!
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