Zafer Demirkol

An easy way to teach kids programming with guidance of teachers and parents.
Our children carry far more immense mental abilities than we think. Just to reveal and explore them, we need to know the tools and methodologies.

"I had been observing some inspiring attempts that are aiming to teach programming to children. However the thought of “I am a father and why doesn’t my son learn programming?” endorsed my soul. Initially, I would think that it was early for him. But on what circumstances?

We are discussing the children who catch tens of movements in the games and make decisions (I have to admit I cannot do that) in split of a second over a TabletPC in their hands.

It wasn’t early for him, it was late indeed. My child could have started learning programming because they had that mental capability. The missing piece in the puzzle is to introduce the appropriate tools with them.

First of all, call it as programming, coding or whatever, it is one of the best application methods of mathematics. Just like application of real life.

It is the life itself. Whether you like or not, math is a part of your life. Even the sentence of “Can I buy a kilogram of apple?” includes math.

Programming is a way of application of math and it is one of the best ones. Because, it includes, problem solving, thinking with multi-dimensions, observing and testing results, getting excited and loving your creation, being proud once you complete; devoting for better, organizing your work, putting your best for your best… In a nutshell it includes many things among life.

In other words, just like maths, programming is also an essential part of the life. While we are making a plan for a vacation, we are making a program and utilizing programming algorithms for our journey. While we are organizing a wedding event, we would be using a programming algorithm set. During studying to an exam, we are using a likely approach for programming; just like the moments of planning a meeting with a friend, driving the marketing for a product and within all the planning of a meal; and we apply those approaches to our life. The lack we don’t do is to convert those approaches into programming.

If we plan well, we enjoy a beautiful vacation, a happy wedding, a good get-together with a friend, we achieve highs sales with a good marketing plan, a successful exam result. That is what programming is. Programming defines how we manage our life. It is a part of our daily life. Whether we like it or not. Even if we are not making professional coding (programming), we are making programming in our professions and think like a programmer. If you are a good programmer, your program consumes less resource and you become successful in what your business.

In a nutshell, programming is not an optional occurrence, in life it is the life itself.

We all make programming but we create their codes differently.

The biggest achievement in teaching children about how programming is done, is to enable them figure those type of life skills and background with fun and swiftness.

Pushing aside all the coding techniques, contemplating over the programming and solution ways for the programming is a practice of programming and we benefit from it in every part of the life.

The rest is the technicality to convert them into codes. There are so many programming languages to do that and all we have to do is to learn the syntax.

Thinking all the possibilities and alternates and figuring out the most efficient is a practice of life just like in programming.

I decided to channel my 30 year know-how and expertise into teaching children how to program.

For that objective

“Where shall we start?”,

“How can we make it lovable?”,

“What tools should we use to teach and practice the programming?”

“How old should we make it start?”

“What is the best methodology?”

I chased the answers of questions like the ones above. While experimenting on that, my son helped me a lot. I noticed his approach and comments. I observed the other children’s approach. With an honest wish to motivate and help all the children, teachers and parents…

1. Computers

2. A Brief Overview to Blockly Platform

3. A Brief Overview to Scratch Platform

4. Algorithms

5. Loops

6. Conditional Clauses

7. Functions and Procedures

8. Creating Shapes and Graphics

9. Variables

10. Lists and Arrays

11. Objects – Object Oriented Programming