Our 11 yr old (SWL) has expressed an interest in coding for some time now. He’s wicked techy and we’re all for it! Finding resources for an 11 yr old to learn to code is another matter altogether. Here are the things I’ve found for computer programming in your homeschool. There is one other, Game Design 1 for Windows Computers, but it’s only for game programming so I’m not considering it right now.
Code Academy (Pros and Cons) – they’re doing a huge revamp!!
- Pros
- It’s free!
- They have courses for all the popular platforms (Ruby, Python, Java, HTML/CSS etc).
- Keeps track of what you’ve done and how you did.
- Forum to get help if you’re stuck.
- Cons
- Not really something he can do on his own for the most part because, let’s face it, it’s complicated to learn to code!
- The forum isn’t that great.
- There’s not much practice.
Code Academy After School (Pros and Cons) – just found this on their site….awesome!!
- Pros
- It’s free!
- Geared toward kids much more than regular Code Academy
- I’m sure there will probably be more, but I’ve just learned of this. We will be implementing it right away, though!
- Cons (I’m not sure of as we haven’t used this much yet.)
Home School Programming (Pros and Cons) – SWL is almost finished with the first course in KidCoder
- Pros
- self-paced
- written directly to the child
- almost 100% self-taught (SWL is doing the completely on his own)
- video lessons along with the book
- it’s broken down extremely well
- not boring at all
- SWL is really retaining everything he’s learning
- there are levels for the kids to work through (KidCoder Visual Basic, KidCoder Web Series, TeenCoder C#, TeenCoder Java w/ Android)
- Cons
- it’s not free (I wouldn’t really call this a con as you get what you pay for!)
I am writing a complete review of the first semester of KidCoder right now. I wanted to wait until SWL finished it first. 
I’ll review the Visual Basic semester and then the Game Programming once he’s finished with that.
*Disclaimer: I did receive the KidCoder series to review it, but that in no way affects my review. When I think something is great, I tell you! When I think something is terrible, I tell you! 
