Parents face a tricky balance; how can they ensure their child has ample time for innocent, unstructured play that all kids need while also readying them for future competition? This question is an old one that has been complicated, like everything else, by COVID-19.
Every parent who is managing their family throughout all of this deserves a big salute. No two families experience the same level of stress or have identical responsibilities to juggle, but it’s been more than a challenge, to say the least.
Safety is everybody’s primary need, but the pandemic’s trickle-down consequences are dire too. Taking kids in and out of school has interrupted their learning, socialization, and more.
Parents should always decide what’s best for their child, but classes for online coding for kids could be a positive way to develop important STEM skills in a safe environment. Please continue reading to learn more about how sessions at RP4K work and how they teach important math fundamentals.
Have you ever found your child resistant when you asked them to stop playing video games? It’s no secret that kids love video games, and Real Programming for Kids uses this to our advantage.
Even in our introductory course for kids as young as seven, we teach children how to code their own video game that they can actually play themselves. On a basic level, kids need to develop a love of learning, and attaching such a wonderful outcome of their design to their hard work is an excellent way to keep them motivated.
Introducing math is sensitive, and the last thing any teacher wants to do in kids coding courses is to create a bad taste in a young pupil’s mouth. RP4K can teach kids about things like integers, 3D vectors, and even trigonometry, but in a way that children won’t even notice is a math class.
When students put all their mind and energy into building the video game, they will absorb the lessons required without thinking of them as lessons.
Learning to code involves using different problem-solving approaches. In a way, it forces students to think logically from one step to the next to achieve one common goal.
STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering, and math — are considered “core” because the types of thinking required can be applied to so many other things. Of course, studying things like literature is invaluable, too! Nobody is arguing against reading, both for its own sake and for the creativity and empathy it can help foster.
But STEM subjects require a different type of mental organization that requires its own structure. Practicing in this develops good habits of mind that can be used in countless things.
Instilling these habits in children from a young age helps to burn them permanently into their hard-wiring. When they begin to think about other things outside school, from planning their social life, career, and more, they’ll be well served by thinking how an engineer would.
The “Gurus” at RP4K are all post-secondary students in subjects like Computer Science or Computer Engineering. We prefer teachers on the younger side because they have both the experience and knowledge to get kids to understand coding and memories of growing up playing video games themselves.
It’s crucial for our teachers to impart knowledge but also to inspire and guide students. Your child may decide that coding is a fun hobby, and they’ll set out one day for some other career. In this case, they’ll love having a teacher who is intimately familiar with many of the same video games they play. One of our teachers even has their own video game firm!
But your child could decide that coding video games or studying Computer Science are something they’d like to do when they’re older. For these students, having a mentor who has recently gone through these experiences can be invaluable.
They may have practical questions about what the day-to-day experience is like in certain programs or professions or how to go about applying or finding a job. Our teachers will provide the right level of guidance and mentorship for whatever your child requires.
Our coding lessons provide many transferrable skills your child can use in any discipline or professional they choose, along with extensive knowledge and experience from the field.
There is more to coding than simply fun and games, and RP4K teaches real coding languages that professionals rely on every day, such as:
Many coding classes focus on drag-and-drop languages that are easier for students to learn but won’t be applicable when they get into the real world. When public schools teach these languages, they usually don’t start until grade 10 or so.
Your child will get a jump start on their computer skills that will help them later in school, the workforce, and in life in general. Many former students from Real Programming 4 Kids have gone on to get jobs developing games for companies like Microsoft, Shadow Blaze Games, and others.
But in the short-term, your child can learn the languages that the best coders use to turn their programming ideas into reality. Drag-and-drop languages like Scratch might be right for getting a toe in the door, but the languages we focus on will have short- and long-term value down the road.
Computer engineers, and engineers in general, have a type of kinship with each other based on their common approach to problem-solving. Learning to code can get your child an inside perspective on how to go about critical thinking in a thorough and logically sound way. Whether they become professional video game designers, study computer sciences, or something else entirely, lessons with RP4K will set them up with a foundation of math skills and mental habits they’ll use down the road.
