ABOUT TKP

Teaching Kids Programming is an non-profit organization of volunteer programmers and school teachers who have developed a framework designed specifically for teaching basic programming to children aged 10 and up. TKP is a designated project of the MONA Foundation – link here.

The framework currently consists of 14 weeks of courseware (“recipes”) that are taught in small, practical steps and give rapid visual rewards as the student’s skill progresses. The associated teaching methods follow the philosophy that kids learn best through self-discovery and collaboration. For more about the courseware design methodologies, see the linked pages below the ‘HOME’ menu of this TKP site. All courseware is free. It can be used by students on their own, or in classrooms with parents or teachers as leader. Enjoy!

Here is a summary of the children that TKP-trained teachers have taught around the world.

Interactive Whiteboards by PolyVision

We currently offer our main courseware library in C#, Java and in Microsoft SmallBasic (the core language and editor are free).  For C#, the courseware and videos are written for professional programmers.  C# courseware is available on Pluralsight and is free.  For Java we have created a customization to Eclipse (to simplify the environment) and have created a set of objects (i.e. Tortoise, ColorWheel, etc…) that are part of a *.jar file which is intended to be used for learning programming.  For SmallBasic we have written extensions to add new objects and documentation to support our recipes and have published those extensions on CodePlex.

Below is a the first recipe (lesson) in our TKP courseware library. As of this writing we have a total of 14 recipes in our library. Each recipes consists of up to 5 parts (recipe, recap, variation, homework and extras).  Each recipe is designed to teach 1-3 programming concepts and will take between 60-90 minutes to teach.  Check back to the TKP recipe page as we are adding new recipes on an ongoing basis.

Recipe & Import ID	Recipe Image & concepts taught	Quiz Import ID & Homework Import ID	Variations Features	Variation Images	Teacher Resources
Simple Square Square	Core objects and IDEFor LoopsColors & Message Box objects	Quiz – FFC797Homework : SXG499	Angle Color Width Sides Length View Grid Variation Video		Cheat Sheet – SND126 (scroll down to read )How to Teach videos