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Comment by fcatalan | Hacker News Reader

I've sat twice in the last month with my 9 year old to start making simple games with Scratch following a book someone got him for Xmas (Coding Games in Scratch by Jon Woodcock).

So far it's going pretty well, the concept introduction and presentation seems well done and paced. He understands what we are doing and how it's done and naturally experiments by changing parameters and graphics. So he's learning and we are having some fun times.

I have not any special desire nor dislike about him becoming a full on programmer, but I keep seeing people around me in all kind of jobs that would be quite better off if they faced some of their tasks with a bit of a "programmer's stance" or could even write simple small scripts to automate stupid chores.

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Can you tell me what sort of "workspace" you use when working with your child?

I have a 7yo that is starting to show interest in technology, and I'd like to do some visual scripting with her. I have laptops and raspberry pis (though no dedicated monitor for a pi), and she has a chromebook from school that may or may not allow application installations.

Do you sit side-by-side? Who drives? Those are the sort of details I'm curious about.

When we sit together on a laptop someone seems always frustrated by screen angle or lack of control, and that friction is something I want to minimize as much as possible.

7 can be a bit early, so recognize that your sessions may need to be fairly short.

I'd suggest you each have a laptop so you're not constantly stealing the control to demonstrate. When I'm teaching my kids on a laptop specifically, if there's only one laptop it always feels like I'm removing autonomy when I take the laptop from them. ("No, you need to click the touchpad like this, then hold them like this" and "oh, hm, i forget where in the navigation that feature is, give me the laptop.")

It breaks the flow and encourages them to mentally coast ("if i struggle, dad will take the laptop and do the heavy lifting for me").

Thank you. Dual laptops is exactly the sort of advice I was asking for, and I wouldn't have thought to do that.

When I started with my twins at 7, we did a scratch tutorial and I drove, and typed. We watched the tutorial on YouTube on the tv, we’d pause, then I’d type and try it.

This was to make it easy to get through a whole tutorial and remove barriers to entry. Then after they enjoyed that, I’d sit at a desktop with them while they drove and help them switch from tutorial to scratch.

Then when we wanted to do something non tutorial based I drove first while we made up what to do - then they were able to start doing it themselves.

Now they’re so into it we got them double monitors so they can easily watch tutorials alongside implementing (or like my own process make notes on one screen, implement on the others).

You can use the Scratch website on a Chromebook assuming that the school hasn't blocked it. I'd recommend using the website and not installing the desktop version. We use Chromebooks at the Code Club at our local library.

I would definitely let the child 'drive' and I would possibly sit nearby at the start but very much take a back seat as much as possible. I haven't investigated it properly myself yet, but in your situation I would look at Code Club World: https://codeclubworld.org/

At the Code Club we used these resources: https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/codeclub though it depends how good your child is at reading. We start Code Club with 8 year olds I think for that reason as well as the ability to follow instructions semi-independently, but some younger children are fine and if they have one-to-one help that sort of thing is less of an issue.

Or even use a spreadsheet well. I think any professional person’s job would be made easier with some knowledge of programming.

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