Wondering, how can kids learn coding? This is a question numerous parents asked. In this article I will answer this question along with free resources. There are real freeways your kids can learn to code, which very few people talk about; most people want to hide them from you.
You can teach your kids to code by taking the advantage of free resources like free courses in Udemy and Khan Academy. You can also grab the opportunity of free trial in linkedIn learning and Skillshare. YouTube can be a valuable free resource too. Your kids can learn Roblox coding in lua for free. W3schools.com is treasure for teaching coding to your child. Freecodecamp.org helps your child to learn coding from home and get certification for free.
My Recommendation:
I will not confuse you with too many options rather with my best recommendation, which is Udemy.com and YouTube.
Your younger kids can learn coding easily by starting with Scratch. So, simply access the Scratch website from this link https://scratch.mit.edu/ and get free courses from Udemy or YouTube. That is just enough to begin the journey.
If your kids are older, then let them begin with either html &css or Python, which are real programming languages. HTML & CSS are very easy and fun to learn. Get a free course from udemy or your kids even can follow the tutorial in YouTube for learning the basic and intermediate knowledge for free.
9 Best ways your kids can learn coding for FREE
- Take advantage of free coding for kids courses in ‘Udemy’
- Begin to teach coding to kids by the free courses provided by khan academy
- Explore the free trial in ‘linkedIn learning’ for one month
- Grab the 2-3 months of free trial in ‘Skillshare’ to teach coding to your kids
- Use YouTube to teach coding to your kids
- Make use of best and free website ‘Scratch’ for teaching coding to your younger child
- Let your child learn Roblox coding in lua for free
- Explore ‘w3schools.com and Mozilla Developer Network’ to teach your kids coding
- Your older kids can learn coding from ‘freecodecamp.org’
- Take advantage of free coding for kids courses in ‘Udemy’
Udemy is a massive open online course provider to prepare professionals and teach students.
Udemy.com can be a powerful way to teach your kids coding. There are number of free coding courses for kids available in Udemy. You child can enrol in those courses and start learning by watching video courses prepared by the instructor. Instructor of the course will lead your child through step by step learning.
The courses in Udemy are really quality course even though I can’t guarantee every course but I myself have taken a lot of courses from Udemy and found real quality courses.
Even though kids can learn by watching videos in free courses but there are some limitations such as, you don’t get community support, support from instructor, certificate etc in the free courses.
If you are interested in only learning these courses are great but if you expect certification then free courses are not for you, you need to go for paid courses, but paid courses are also very much affordable.
You can read the reviews and check out starts before taking a course, so that you don’t waste time rather invest your time in the best course.
- Begin to teach coding to kids by the free courses provided by khan academy
Khanacademy.org is having one mission providing free and world class education for free of cost to every individual. So you can grab this opportunity to teach coding to your kids by accessing free coding courses.
There are some courses available at present that can be really helpful for teaching your child coding.
The courses on Khan Academy is not be appropriate for your younger kids as they courses are stared with real programming language, which can be boring and frustrating to younger kids. Because younger kids must start leaning coding with gun and game, which ‘Scratch’ provides. I will talk about it.
If your kids are older than the courses on khan academy will be perfect.
You can visit the link below to access the coding courses.
I won’t tell the coding courses on khan academy are so great but for free they are fine.
- Explore the free trial in ‘linkedIn learning’ for one month
LinkedIn learning or previously known as Lynda is online learning website that offers thousands of video courses prepared by the industry experts in software, creative and business skills.
The great opportunity that this website provides is that, you can try this website for one month without paying single penny. During this free trial you can access any courses you want.
You can visit the below link to access the website.
Once you are landed on the web page search for kids coding or any related search to find the courses.
Enjoy the courses for one month and get away from the platform or if want to continue then pay and continue to learn.
Your kids can learn a lot of new thing during this one month of free trial, which they can practice for months. So, this can be a great resource for free.
Another amazing advantage of this platform is that during the trial period you are considered as a subscribed user, so you get all the benefits of a paid subscriber. You child can complete some courses within this one month and collect even free certificates from LinkedIn learning.
- Grab the 2-3 months of free trial in ‘Skillshare’ to teach coding to your kids
Skillshare is an online learning community to teach and learn though educational videos. You can access the coding courses along with wide verity of courses for absolutely free for the 2-3 months of free trial period.
During this time your kids can learn a lot in coding. Your kids get premium courses for absolutely free during the trial time.
After the trial time over, you can either pay and continue or just cancel the subscription.
You may not get many courses for coding for kids but whatever you get still it is gaining for free.
You can visit the link below to access the course for younger kids.
you can visit the below links for coding for older kids.
- Use YouTube to teach coding to your kids
Never forget YouTube is always a great resource for teaching coding to your kids. There are many tutorials that can teach your kids coding in amazing way that also for free.
Never ignore this platform, a lot of valuable free resources available on this platform.
Remember jumping from one tutorial or one channel to other channel is not the way to learn coding; it is just wasting of time. I would recommend that before starting to learn check out the resource in the tutorial, if you find the tutorials are providing quality leaning experience, only then start learning and stick till the end.
I can say that even without going for any premium course, kids can learn the basic concepts of coding and reach till intermediate level by learning from YouTube video tutorials.
But surely, you cannot expect certification from YouTube. Coding is not about certification; it is all about learning and understanding how the computers work.
So, if you desire for certification then I would suggest you to consider the matter once again.
- Make use of best and free website ‘Scratch’ for teaching coding to your younger child
Scratch is just the best website for younger kids to begin to learn the concept of coding with fun and game. Being a high school teacher who teaches kids coding, I can recommend this website to any parents. I myself have seen how children are enjoying the coding in this platform.
Moreover it is absolutely free platform; you don’t need to pay even a single penny for using this amazing tool. It is a block based coding platform, where your kids will just drag and drop the code and use their creativity to crate awesome interactive stories, animations and games etc. your kids also will be able to share their creation in the online community.
In order to access this website you need to go through this link https://scratch.mit.edu/ , remember it is not scratch.com it is scratch.mit.edu
There is very much possibility to get confused with too many websites and apps. But this is the best platform without doubt for your younger kids to start learning the concepts of coding.
It is best because it provides awesome learning potentiality and there are plenty of free resources available over internet to learn about the use of this platform.
Scratch is simply a great place to begin to learn the essential skills of present century for your younger kids, by learning to think creatively, reason systematically and work collaboratively with their friends and brothers or sisters.
Once your child is 6 years old they are capable to use Scratch. Scratch is used in wide Variety of places like at home, school, library and community centres etc.
As the ability of coding computer programming is becoming a must have skill for kids at today’s society. Your kids will learn strategies for solving problems, designing amazing projects and communicating ideas by coding in Scratch.
- Let your child learn Roblox coding in lua for free
Roblox is a great platform for developing games, as children love game they will surely love to code game in this platform. But I would recommend that once your kids learn coding in Scratch. Your kids can start coding in this platform at the age of 9 or more for better performance.
Read about Robert and how he learned Roblox coding.
Game Developer and Kid
I am a kid and game developer with the age of 11 years old. I am programming in Lua for quite a long time. I found it is the simplest programming language other than Scratch. You can easily learn by watching the tutorials in YouTube or from the Roblox wiki. There are some great YouTube channels that provide Roblox scripting tutorials for free. You can take the help of forum sites. It is easy to learn this language. I have learned this language by going through free models.
I have written an explained article on this topic, Lua Coding for Roblox Absolute Free Classes for Kids (Genuine Guide). You can read article by clicking on this link below.
https://codingforkidsfree.com/lua-coding-for-roblox-free-classes-for-kids-genuine-guide/
- Explore ‘w3schools.com and Mozilla Developer Network’ to teach your kids coding
If your child is above 10 years old and learning some real programming language then these sites can be really great help for your kid’s learning coding.
It will be easy if your kids are learning coding by following some video tutorials and along with that exploring these sites, as these sites provides the documentations.
You can visit the below links to explore these sites.
W3schools has certification facility, for which you need to test your skills with w3schools online quizzes, and then pay exam fees to apply for the certification, take exam and get the certificate.
But I personally don’t recommend for this certification as it requires fee.
There are free methods even to get certificate without paying any fees, which I am going to discuss in next paragraph.
- Your older kids can learn coding from ‘freecodecamp.org’
Your older child can learn coding just by sitting at home with the help of freecodecamp.org, build real projects and earn free certificates from freecodecamp.
Freecodecamp is a nonprofit organization with the mission of helping people to learn coding for free. They provide thousands of videos and interactive coding lessons for absolutely free.
Here is what Sarah Chima from Nigeria says about freecodecamp
Sarah Chima
Software Engineer at ChatDesk
The well structure curriculum of freecodecamp has provided me with the coding knowledge from beginning level to very confident level. I have learnt everything that needed to learn to land my first dev job. Today I am a software developer through the gateway called freecodecamp.
Your kids will be able to learn:
- Responsive Web Design
- JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures
- Front End Libraries
- Data Visualization
- APIs and Microservices
- Quality Assurance
- Scientific Computing with Python
- Data Analysis with Python
- Information Security
- Machine Learning with Python
- Coding Interview Prep (Thousands of hours of challenges)