This past year, my 14 year old son completed Teen Coder Windows and C# Programming from Homeschool Programming. He really enjoyed the course, learned a lot and earned 1 electives credit for high school.
Though not as tech savvy, my 12 year old has wanted to learn some programming as well. So, between my 14, 12 and 10 year olds we reviewed the Kid Coder Beginning Web Design from Homeschool Programming.
From their website:
KidCoder: Beginning Web Design is the first semester course in the KidCoder Web series. 4th–12th grade students will learn to create their own web pages using HTML. Hands-on fun for all students, young or old!
Topics Covered in this Course
- Mark-up concepts
- Website layouts and files
- Backing up projects
- Essential HTML symbols
- Styling of text
- Using symbols and lists
- Internal and external hyperlinks
- Navigation bars and footers
- Simple CSS effects
- Spacing and positioning
- Graphics and image editing
- Tables
Kid Coder Web Design is created for students between 4-12 grade and retails for $70 for the course only, $85 for the course with video and $20 for the video only. The second semester (Advanced Web Design) is available as a package for $120.
OUR EXPERIENCE:
As suspected, my 10 year quickly lost interest. This wasn't an area she had any desire in pursing.
My 12 year old wanted to learn HTML coding, but had some troubles reading the text for comprehension. In true auditory learning form, he thrived when instructed by his older brother.
And, as expected, my 14 year old was all over this course! He loved it!! He commented that "the step-by-step explanations of concepts are in-depth enough for even younger kids to follow". He also loved being the one looking over his younger sibling's shoulder giving oral instructions when needed.
The following screen shots are from my boys working together. This is actual code they wrote in making the web page from Homeschool Programming.
From Chapter 4
Here's what it looks like live:
And, a few chapters later, this is more code....
And the resulting live page:
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I am moving from Blogger to Wordpress. Because of this curriculum, my 14 year old was more than able to help me track down some nuance changes in the theme. What was making me go cross-eyed was a piece of cake for him. It goes without saying that we are Homeschool Programming fans in our home! My oldest two will continue using this program to further their web skills.
This course also contains chapter tests. I chose to forgo these tests and have the boys do 'oral presentations' instead.
My only complaint about this program was due to having a downloadable ebook version, getting it up and running was trickier than having a hardcopy in hand to refer to. I would definitely recommend the printed version!
Look at sample pages and check out what other crew members are saying!
This post written and property of Homeschool Circus and can be found at: www.upatdawnreadytowork.com.