The 2020-2021 school year is coming up quickly. As every parent knows, the school year isn’t just about heading back to the classroom. A big part of the school year experience is extra-curriculars.
Extra-curricular activities and courses are a chance for kids to develop more advanced skills in a special interest. The regular school year doesn’t offer kids an opportunity to focus on developing new skills in areas that interest them more than others. Whether it’s sports, music, or coding, parents have to look outside of the classroom to find those extra opportunities for growth.
Extra-curriculars can also help in a whole bunch of other ways:
Summer isn’t the only time kids can learn to code. We offer school season coding classes that take place each week for between 1-2 hours. During the 2020-2021 school year, online coding courses will run for 18 weeks. The first semester will start in September or October and run until February or March. The second semester will run from February or March to June.
School year coding classes great for students who want to explore more facets of video game development and coding.
Ontario’s curriculum is getting an important update in the new school year. Starting in first grade, students will now begin to learn how to code. That’s great news, as coding is increasingly becoming an essential skill in the workforce. Best of all, it’s going to introduce more kids to coding than ever before, and they’re going to want to learn more. There’s always a limit to what kids can learn in school, and plenty of kids are going to be hungry for more.
University studies have shown that playing video games makes children more creative. Games ask that their players problem-solve to advance, choose different paths to create their characters, or offer a sandbox experience. They can also inspire kids to want to make their own games.
Making video games involves coding, art, sound, writing, and more. One of the most common ways people get started in a video game career is making their own portfolio of short, independent games.
Real Programming 4 Kids courses give kids their first opportunity to build a video game from the ground up. Using the programming concepts that they learn, they start work on a project to recreate a video game. Many students make their own customizations to truly make the game unique. It’s an engaging process that combines creativity and self-expression with coding and math. Coders see first hand how math and technology skills can be applied to creative efforts.
Real Programming 4 Kids courses have a maximum class size of 4 students, and there’s no minimum student minimum required for the classes we offer. If you register, the class will run. It’s been our experience that computer programming for kids is better when they learn in smaller class sizes. Smaller class sizes make a huge difference in learning:
Smaller class sizes are great for improving communication, retention, and making sure kids just have a great time as they learn how to code.
With so many usual activities still up in the air, it’s good to know that kids can still get the extra-curricular courses they want to try online. RP4K now lets students learn online at home. Class sizes are still a maximum of four, so students still get plenty of one-on-one time with instructors and work in smaller environments where they have plenty of space to ask questions, share ideas, and get the most out of their experience.
School year coding courses run in two semesters, the first from September or October to February or March, and the second from February or March to June. During the school year, students meet once a week, either on a weeknight or on Saturdays. Having a weeknight or weekend activity isn’t too onerous and should fit into even a busy schedule, and RP4K can even arrange for shorter class times if that’s what you need to make it work.
If school year courses won’t work, there’s always summer coding camps, which meet more frequently but still give students plenty of time to develop their video game projects. Summer coding camps are 3-hour sessions that run every weekday in either the morning or the afternoon, for 1 to 2 weeks. It’s also a great way for students who are keen to learn coding quickly to graduate through many or all of the courses in the briefer period of time. They can learn complex technical coding skills by the end of summer and start the school year knowing industry standard programming languages with the skills they need to start making their own video games.
There are a lot of good reasons to sign up for online coding for kids. Technology is becoming an ever-more dominant force in the world. Coding and computer programming jobs are in high demand, and that’s not likely to change soon, but an increasing number of jobs that never used to touch coding are now finding that it’s a great asset for employees to have. Basic web design coding skills can open up jobs in marketing and public relationships, and coding skills can be very useful in industries like finance, science, engineering, and many more.
Career prospects may not exactly be on the top of your mind for younger kids. That’s okay! There are plenty of other reasons they should learn how to code, such as improving their problem-solving skills, learning advanced math concepts before they encounter them in school. Learning a skill like coding can also build their confidence; they’ll be an expert at something not many of their peers will know as well as they do.
