I live with a family who have two daughters, age 7 and 9. I was able to rescue some laptops from office trash, running Windows XP. We had a lot of time during lockdowns and in evenings to play - whether that was on computers or with magnet toys, dolls, etc.
I first learned programming when I was 7, drawing a cube in Logo on a Mac Plus. I taught myself programming when I was 11, writing AppleScript to rip music from an iPod and download the Bible and Shakespeare books, and turn them into 1000-character Notes so I could share my book with classmates who forgot theirs. Yes, I used eBooks in school in 2003.
These notes are just a messy summary, which I'd like to turn into a real curriculum. Some of them were surprisingly fun for all of us (Escargot MSN messenger, binary morse code to send a smiley face using flashing lights, and drawing the result on squared paper). Now they watch a lot of YouTube, but the need to search for things on Google is motivating the 7 year old that reading/writing/typing is actually important.
Done: Google Chrome. Bookmarks. Save image. Age of Empires. Worms. Mahjong, Solitaire, eSheep, Asteroid, Alien Force, Bejeweled, stressreducers. Satellites, rocket ships, Lego. Rummikub. Connect 4. Slime, unicorn poo cleaning game. Dancing robot. YouTube Tayo, Miniforce, PJ masks, watchcar, Kaycee and Rachel. Google Images. Escargot MSN messenger server to teach typing. Anna discovered backgrounds, emoticons, nudges, fonts by herself. Your/you're. World map on paper. Maths homework +-*/, >,<,=. Roman numerals. Binary. Additive and subtractive colour mixing. Google doodle for Mother's Day. North Korea: Crossing, friends. Old photos of me, rocket designs, ex-girlfriends. NASA. Kid Pix. Birthdays, contact phone numbers in paper book. Narwhals song. Nyan cat. The Japanese Tradition sushi. Princess Bride. How To Train Your Dragon. Copyright (Charlieissocoollike magic mars bars). TPB, rar. Writing letters, making cards. Drawing stegosaurus. English jokes. External mouse. USB drive. External screen. Headphones. Power bank, USB phone charging. How networks send messages to servers (big computer, bigger than a rocket ship). Wires in walls, under roads, WiFi to space to talk to satellites. My work is building servers. Minecraft. Printing, scanning.
Line rider. Pacman, snake, breakout, pinball
Webtoons
Custom icon design.
MS Office, PS
Reading on laptop screen: Comics, Bible.
Chatterbox
Difference between battery and power supply.
Jokes emails, short jokes Reddit. FML? TED. Weebl.
Minesweeper. Pic slider with photo of me.
Bluestacks.
Teach Kid Pix again with printer, Paint, PhotoShop to make line drawings for colouring.
Teach Logo. Play with it.
Google maps for navigation, Google Earth for satellite pictures.
Wikipedia about Harry Potter.
Web server. Run Pingtype. Teach basic HTML. Then Wordpress.org. Perhaps PHPBB?
Field trip to server farm, observatory. Rocket Lab?
Build flashing red and blue lights with LEDs and put them on toys.
Computer hardware repair? Fit Win7 ultimate IDE disk to desktop PC.
YouTube ripping. Music in iTunes.
Movies in Kodi? Or VLC?
Music creation?
Copying photos from phone. Organising photos on computer.
KMart, eBay, Craigslist, Amazon online shops.
Writing programs beyond Logo. Some JavaScript game; Python web scraping.
Charities: WWF, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, UNHCR, UNICEF.
Google Drive, Dropbox only after having an email account.
Outlook calendar, contacts? For all Anna's animals: Reirei, Titi, Snowy, Bunbun, Koaly, baby koaly, Annabelle, Kang Karen, Liky, Kitty, Uni.
Writing documents in Word and printing them.
Making graphs in Excel.
PowerPoint presentations: lyrics, slides, photos.
Typing Chinese, Korean.
Lightbulb, power sockets, adaptors.
Veggietales, Sesame Street
Advanced: not just "good with computers" but actually a dev.
Windows: reinstalling, drivers, certificates.
Linux: ssh, nano, cat, echo, mv, cp, chmod, tar, sudo.
Mac: Time Machine, AppleScript
Networking: dd-wrt, ipconfig, DNS, hosts file. TCP sockets.
Hardware: common voltages: 1.5, 5, 12, 220. Electroboom. Soldering. Finding V+ and GND. Tracing faults.
Virtual machines.
Jailbreaking, rooting.
XKCD, Hacker News. IRC.
YouTube uploads, live streaming.
OBS. Audio feedback.
Imagemagick, ffmpeg.
Tableau, PowerBI
These kinds of things can be used for interviews, not only education.
Bitmap graphics A1, D1, ... smiley face
Code.org is logo
Morse code, binary
Numberblocks YouTube
Babybus super panda youtube
Toca Life for Android.
Among Us on Android.
WeChat.
Mathletics.
I first learned programming when I was 7, drawing a cube in Logo on a Mac Plus. I taught myself programming when I was 11, writing AppleScript to rip music from an iPod and download the Bible and Shakespeare books, and turn them into 1000-character Notes so I could share my book with classmates who forgot theirs. Yes, I used eBooks in school in 2003.
These notes are just a messy summary, which I'd like to turn into a real curriculum. Some of them were surprisingly fun for all of us (Escargot MSN messenger, binary morse code to send a smiley face using flashing lights, and drawing the result on squared paper). Now they watch a lot of YouTube, but the need to search for things on Google is motivating the 7 year old that reading/writing/typing is actually important.
Done: Google Chrome. Bookmarks. Save image. Age of Empires. Worms. Mahjong, Solitaire, eSheep, Asteroid, Alien Force, Bejeweled, stressreducers. Satellites, rocket ships, Lego. Rummikub. Connect 4. Slime, unicorn poo cleaning game. Dancing robot. YouTube Tayo, Miniforce, PJ masks, watchcar, Kaycee and Rachel. Google Images. Escargot MSN messenger server to teach typing. Anna discovered backgrounds, emoticons, nudges, fonts by herself. Your/you're. World map on paper. Maths homework +-*/, >,<,=. Roman numerals. Binary. Additive and subtractive colour mixing. Google doodle for Mother's Day. North Korea: Crossing, friends. Old photos of me, rocket designs, ex-girlfriends. NASA. Kid Pix. Birthdays, contact phone numbers in paper book. Narwhals song. Nyan cat. The Japanese Tradition sushi. Princess Bride. How To Train Your Dragon. Copyright (Charlieissocoollike magic mars bars). TPB, rar. Writing letters, making cards. Drawing stegosaurus. English jokes. External mouse. USB drive. External screen. Headphones. Power bank, USB phone charging. How networks send messages to servers (big computer, bigger than a rocket ship). Wires in walls, under roads, WiFi to space to talk to satellites. My work is building servers. Minecraft. Printing, scanning. Line rider. Pacman, snake, breakout, pinball Webtoons Custom icon design. MS Office, PS Reading on laptop screen: Comics, Bible. Chatterbox
Difference between battery and power supply. Jokes emails, short jokes Reddit. FML? TED. Weebl. Minesweeper. Pic slider with photo of me. Bluestacks. Teach Kid Pix again with printer, Paint, PhotoShop to make line drawings for colouring. Teach Logo. Play with it. Google maps for navigation, Google Earth for satellite pictures. Wikipedia about Harry Potter. Web server. Run Pingtype. Teach basic HTML. Then Wordpress.org. Perhaps PHPBB? Field trip to server farm, observatory. Rocket Lab? Build flashing red and blue lights with LEDs and put them on toys. Computer hardware repair? Fit Win7 ultimate IDE disk to desktop PC. YouTube ripping. Music in iTunes. Movies in Kodi? Or VLC? Music creation? Copying photos from phone. Organising photos on computer. KMart, eBay, Craigslist, Amazon online shops. Writing programs beyond Logo. Some JavaScript game; Python web scraping. Charities: WWF, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, UNHCR, UNICEF. Google Drive, Dropbox only after having an email account. Outlook calendar, contacts? For all Anna's animals: Reirei, Titi, Snowy, Bunbun, Koaly, baby koaly, Annabelle, Kang Karen, Liky, Kitty, Uni. Writing documents in Word and printing them. Making graphs in Excel. PowerPoint presentations: lyrics, slides, photos. Typing Chinese, Korean. Lightbulb, power sockets, adaptors. Veggietales, Sesame Street
Advanced: not just "good with computers" but actually a dev. Windows: reinstalling, drivers, certificates. Linux: ssh, nano, cat, echo, mv, cp, chmod, tar, sudo. Mac: Time Machine, AppleScript Networking: dd-wrt, ipconfig, DNS, hosts file. TCP sockets. Hardware: common voltages: 1.5, 5, 12, 220. Electroboom. Soldering. Finding V+ and GND. Tracing faults. Virtual machines. Jailbreaking, rooting. XKCD, Hacker News. IRC. YouTube uploads, live streaming. OBS. Audio feedback. Imagemagick, ffmpeg. Tableau, PowerBI
These kinds of things can be used for interviews, not only education.
Bitmap graphics A1, D1, ... smiley face Code.org is logo Morse code, binary
Numberblocks YouTube Babybus super panda youtube Toca Life for Android. Among Us on Android. WeChat. Mathletics.