Programming curriculum: a journey that started when my kids were about 8 year old

My kids watched me spending long hours writing code at home. This probably made them think that software development is a “regular” kind of a job i.e. there is no barriers of entry. My boys just wanted to emulate their father.

We started learning programming at the age of 8. At this age they became reasonably comfortable with the keyboard and spelling of basic English keywords like: for, while, writeln, etc.

I told my kids that programming is a very important aspect of the curriculum. They probably did not understand what I meant. However, when I started talking about video game programming – they got my message. Suddenly object oriented programming and 3D modeling became exciting topics. My sons started asking me about good text books for learning programming.

I decided to skip the traditional procedural introductory material. We jumped right into object oriented style of programming using C++. I decided against spending time on typical beginner tools like Alice or Logo. I have to admit that I was a little surprised how easily they understood the concepts like classes, objects, inheritance or polymorphism.

After several years of learning programming my kids are able to dive into quite complex programming environments. One of my boys became very interested in Minecraft programming using Java and Forge. This is a very challenging combination of tools and libraries. My other son is more interested in 3D graphics and uses Blender to develop his animations and small interactive simulations and games.

I this blog I will be posting materials that we use in our curriculum. I will also discuss effectiveness of various approaches to teaching programming.