My oldest daughter, Micah, who is seven years old just wrote her first computer program. Being a former programmer of sorts myself, I was looking for an easy way for Micah to learn about programming. My wife found a link to an educational programming application for kids designed by some genius’ at MIT.
The programming language/program is called “Scratch“. It’s really amazing how quickly kids can figure out how to write programs.
Micah sat down and I quickly gave her an idea about how the program worked. Then in about 45 minutes, she came up with this (Click on the image to load the program. Move your mouse to have the ladybug follow the cursor. Click on the red “stop sign” to stop the animation):
Click here to see the program on the Scratch website.
She did all the artwork, animation, sound (she recorded herself singing), and programming. I was amazed!
Anyway, just though I’d share…
Oh MY Goodness!! I LOOOOOVE it!! A perfect song for Miss Sunshine herself – Micah has consistently amazed me all of her young life and this is a new high! I am impressed beyond belief. Great work, Micah – now, how do I download her program to my computer?
Darin, does this mean you are going to start home-schooling our kids in computer programming? Abigail want in….
Love to my Sugar Sunshine Girl – Lisa