Discussion on: Explaining Programming to 6 Years Old Kids

[Tom Chapin]

I highly recommend using a children-friendly programming language like Scratch (scratch.mit.edu/) to explain programming to kids.

Don't focus on the low level computer science (like how binary and assembly works).

While that's certainly going on in the background, it's not what programming is really "about". Programming is about applying logic to solve problems.

You can demonstrate simple programming concepts in plain language, like so:

here is a bucket of different colored balls
go through the bucket of balls and pull out each ball one by one
if the ball is blue, then
yell "this ball is blue!", then
throw the ball!

You have an example that is perfect for demonstrating usage of variables, lists, loops, conditional logic, and methods!

You can express this programming example on a whiteboard in plain language, or in any number of actual programming languages.

For example, in Python:

def throw_ball(ball_color):
   print("I am now throwing the "+ball_color+" ball!")

bucket_of_balls = ["blue", "red", "orange"]
for ball_color in bucket_of_balls:
   if ball_color == "blue":
      print("this ball is blue!")
      throw_ball(ball_color)