Teach Your Kids to Code: A Parent-Friendly Guide to Python Programming

Teach Your Kids to Code is a parent’s and teacher’s guide to teaching kids basic programming and problem solving using Python, the powerful language used in college courses and by tech companies like Google and IBM.

Step-by-step explanations will have kids learning computational thinking right away, while visual and game-oriented examples hold their attention. Friendly introductions to fundamental programming concepts such as variables, loops, and functions will help even the youngest programmers build the skills they need to make their own cool games and applications.

Whether you’ve been coding for years or have never programmed anything at all, Teach Your Kids to Code will help you show your young programmer how to:

• Explore geometry by drawing colorful shapes with Turtle graphics
• Write programs to encode and decode messages, play Rock-Paper-Scissors, and calculate how tall someone is in Ping-Pong balls
• Create fun, playable games like War, Yahtzee, and Pong
• Add interactivity, animation, and sound to their apps

Teach Your Kids to Code is the perfect companion to any introductory programming class or after-school meet-up, or simply your educational efforts at home. Spend some fun, productive afternoons at the computer with your kids—you can all learn something!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Python Basics: Get to Know Your Environment
Chapter 2. Turtle Graphics: Drawing with Python
Chapter 3. Numbers and Variables: Python Does the Math
Chapter 4. Loops Are Fun (You Can Say That Again)
Chapter 5. Conditions (What If?)
Chapter 6. Random Fun and Games: Go Ahead, Take a Chance!
Chapter 7. Functions: There’s a Name for That
Chapter 8. Timers and Animation: What Would Disney Do?
Chapter 9. User Interaction: Get into the Game
Chapter 10. Game Programming: Coding for Fun
Appendix A. Python Setup for Windows, Mac, and Linux
Appendix B. Pygame Setup for Windows, Mac, and Linux
Appendix C. Building Your Own Modules