Introduction to Coding and Game Development for Kids

Email lfgentner@gmail.com to sign up.

This 8-week course is designed specifically for students ages 7 to 12 who have no prior coding experience. We will start with the basics (how to run your first line of code) and progress to writing functions, reading simple documentation, and building a game.

Goals

• Present coding as something doable, usable, and fun.
• Introduce students to the foundational coding concepts in a robust, language-agnostic way.
• Give students the tools needed to work independently on a game of their own design.
• Introduce basic problem solving skills and thinking habits:
• Slowing down and working one step at a time
• Asking questions and running experiments to find answers for yourself
• Precise and unambiguous communication
• Identifying all of the tools and information you have
• Identifying the tools and information you need, but don't have
• Asking: is this similar to something I’ve seen before?

Structure

• $50 per week for 8 weeks ($400 total)
• Weekly 1:1 lessons, 60 minutes each
• Weekly self-guided exercises to introduce and reinforce key concepts (often without code)

Topics

• What is Coding?
• Basic Data Types: Numbers, Strings, Boolean Values
• Variables, Functions, and Modularization
• Boolean Logic: If Statements
• Loops
• Arrays
• Basic Game Development Tools

Tools and Materials

• Students will use JavaScript, but all concepts will be presented in a language-agnostic way
• We will run code using replit.com — a free tool that makes setup simple