<story><title>Python Exercises for Kids</title><url>http://blog.regehr.org/archives/1300</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dkopi</author><text>Started programming when I was 8 using basic.
Things have changed a lot since then, but one thing probably hasn&amp;#x27;t:
The best incentive I got to continue learning how to program was my ability to impress others.&lt;p&gt;I would develop screen savers (Lines floating on the screen, lines being drawn randomly on screen, ball bouncing off the edges of the screen, flying into a star-field as the stars move away from the center of the screen), and show them off to my friends and family.
I would develop a small game (spaceship moves up and down to avoid hitting incoming asteroids) - I&amp;#x27;d show it to my friends. Let my brothers play the game.&lt;p&gt;These were the type of rewarding tasks that led me to keep on learning and experimenting.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re doing Python - I strongly recommend &amp;quot;Inventing computer games with python&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;inventwithpython.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;inventwithpython.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;
Using pygame, you can get really quick graphical results, and start showing off some awesome things.
I even built a Tetris game based on pygame a while back when I was learning python myself.&lt;p&gt;Also - if you&amp;#x27;re doing turtle programming, check out &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pythonturtle.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pythonturtle.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; - an awesome implementation of turtle graphics for python.</text></comment>
<story><title>Python Exercises for Kids</title><url>http://blog.regehr.org/archives/1300</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>harryf</author><text>Most &amp;quot;Teach Kids Programming&amp;quot; are build on the idea that programming means sitting still in front of a keyboard typing stuff. Most kids under 10 can manage at most about 15 minutes of that before getting bored and either wanting to get up and jump around or watch YouTube &amp;#x2F; play games.&lt;p&gt;Scratch (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scratch.mit.edu&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;scratch.mit.edu&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;) helps a bit but it&amp;#x27;s still &amp;quot;stuck in front of a screen&amp;quot; and reaching a &amp;quot;reward&amp;quot;, in terms of a meaningful result takes longer than the average childs attention span.&lt;p&gt;Best starting point I&amp;#x27;ve ever seen is this &amp;quot;How to Train your Robot&amp;quot; real world game - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;drtechniko.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;teaching-the-how-to-train-your-robot-to-jump-game&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;drtechniko.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;teaching-the-how-to-train-...&lt;/a&gt; - which is based on the idea that adults play the robots and kids get to tell them what to do. That&amp;#x27;s immediately a fascinating starting point for kids to hold their interest while they pick up some basic ideas of logic and creating instruction sets for a 3rd party to execute.</text></comment>