Top Brands: Sphero - Wonder Workshop - Makeblock - Amazon Kids
BLACK FRIDAY: Amazon Fire Kids Pro 10"
BLACK FRIDAY: Amazon Fire Kids Pro 10"
NEWS$show=/search/label/news
Here's where you'll find all the latest news about technology for children. We love to follow cool new inventions on Kickstarter and we hunt out all the latest announcements about tech toys and gadgets for the coming Christmas holidays. You'll also get our take on children's technology stories in the media.
REVIEWS$show=/search/label/review
Our kids technology product reviews are intended to help you work out whether a toy, gadget or kit is a good fit for your child or family.
There's lots of cool stuff available, but is it the right choice for the child or teenager that you are buying for?
We'll help you make the right choices and get the best value for money.
GIFT GUIDES$show=/search/label/gift%20guide
Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends assemble. We create gift lists to help you make good choices for kids technology which helps them develop the right skills for the future. We research the best in Coding Toys and Games, Making / Craft Tools and Kits, STEM/STEAM related gifts, Programmable Robots, Electronics Kits and Gadgets for Tech Age Kids and Teens.
PROJECTS$show=/search/label/project
Get crafty with technology. Here we'll post all our ideas and projects using technology to get creative and making with kids. You'll find anything from making a lemon battery to a glow-in-the-dark Minecraft sword. Our projects are tried and tested on our own kids or at events we run, so we are sure you can have a go at home with your kids. Some of our projects use specific tech gadgets which we provide links for you to purchase.
STEM$show=/search/label/stem
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In recent years there is an increased focus in these areas of study. We like to include Art and Design too, so we often talk about STEAM (A stands for Art). At Tech Age Kids we believe Coding is a new literacy and children need to understand how technology works, practice making skills and grow in their curiosity to make a better future for us all.
CODING$show=/search/label/coding
Coding is increasingly being recognised as an important skill for children to learn. Some will learn to code at school or at a coding club, but it's brilliant if they get support at home too.
ELECTRONICS$show=/search/label/electronics
We think it's really important for kids to get hands-on with electronics and learn how to make circuits and write code to control hardware.
Younger kids can start with conductive playdough. For kids who like to combine craft and tech, littleBits are fab. And we love SAM Labs wireless electronics components for making it easy for kids to make Internet of Things inventions.
Lots of electronics kits for kids have support for the Arduino microprocessor environment. The DuinoKit Jr is one of our favourites. Arduino is a fab skill for older kids and teens to develop.
ROBOTICS$show=/search/label/robotics
We love robots at Tech Age Kids, especially programmable ones. We've got lots of them and write reviews and projects that use them.
Our programmable robots for kids buying guide is a good place to start if you're not sure what's available.
Roby the mBot Meccano robot dog is one of our popular projects and has been with us to lots of events. Our Ozobot LEGO trailer is fab for kids who love LEGO and robots.
MAKING AND CRAFT$show=/search/label/making
We're advocates of the creative use of technology, but this needs to be balanced with developing physical skills such as papercraft, woodwork, clay modelling, technical drawing and soldering. If children don't develop these skills as they grow up then physical making projects can become frustrating rather than fun.
The Maker Community uses the term 'making' as a broad term to include all sorts of artisan skills or craft activities. Being able to make things can lead to life-long hobbies or even careers. It's a great feeling to be able to take a project from an idea in your head to a real object that does something.
We're particularly interested to explore products that combine maker skills with tech skills such as electronics but others focus purely on the physical making skills that are still important to modern making.
Super Scratch Programming Adventure!: Learn to Program By Making Cool Games is a book that aims to teach kids to code in a fun way.
My older son is now 6.5 so it's about time he learned to code! We've done bits and pieces before and he's pretty adept with getting his BigTrak programmable vehicle to do what he wants. Now it's time for the next step.
Scratch is a visual programming language that uses lots of graphics and sound and simple building blocks to make things easy and interesting for kids. I thought my son would enjoy a book so he's got something with a bit of structure to follow so he can learn about the techniques that are available to him.
There are a few Scratch programming guides around but this one jumped out at me immediately because of it's visual design and adventure theme. Super Scratch Programming Adventure introduces each chapter with a full color comic telling the next part of the story that runs through the book. And the exercises in the book are all beautifully laid out too. This does not look like a stuffy text book at all.
When the book arrived my son took to it immediately. The adventure than underpins the book is packed with just the sort of things that will appeal to a primary or middle school aged boy - space aliens, an Egyptian pyramid, magic and gemstones.
First he had a quick look at the book and then had a play with Scratch. Not following the instructions yet, but playing around with things. Then he wanted to read through the comic adventure parts to see what would happen and make sure he liked it - he did, very much!
The book itself is absolutely gorgeous. The quality of the printing, paper and cover is amazing. I think it makes sense to have a physical copy of this book as you can easily have it open next to the computer. There is an eBook version available if you prefer the portability of that option.
You get a set of downloadable projects that are used to jumpstart the exercises. Completed versions are also included in case you get stuck or just want to play around.
This video will give you an idea of the kinds of projects kids will be building with this book.
One thing I wasn't too keen on is that the first chapter begins by telling you various things you need to know 'before getting started'. Well they are things you need for the exercise, but I think it would have been better to start with an even simpler exercise that didn't need that additional knowledge just to get kids hands-on as soon as possible. We just took a quick break from the book to play around with Scratch before starting the exercise.
Scratch Programming Adventure is for kids from age 8 up and even younger kids with help from their parents. At 6 I expect my son to need a bit of help. He hasn't learned about measuring angles in degrees or coordinate systems at school yet and the first exercise uses these. That's fine - he really should know about those things and it's a good prompt to cover them.
I'll be updating this review as we make our way through the book. So far, we love it. It's very well targeted and my son is so excited to be making things happen himself.
Update 1: OK, We're now most of the way through Stage (Chapter) 2 and we only stopped there because my son really, really had to go to bed. He wanted to finish the whole book!
In Stage 1 he decided to get rid of Scratchy the Cat and replace him with a Buffalo and insisted on using a desert background instead of the coordinate grid. He also found things were going too fast so I gave him some hints on how to slow it down. This is one of the things I really like about this book - there's enough flexibility to do your own thing and still be able to follow the instructions and make it work.
The Buffalo stayed for Stage 2 and is now the star of the story. My son has been able to do most things by himself. I've just helped him to keep track of where he is in the book and read out some of the instructions for him. I've also been showing him some quicker ways to do things like copy and paste and using Tab to navigate through inputs.
We had a bit of a panic when we lost the Buffalo from the stage. I was very popular when I managed to get him back (I right clicked on his sprite and selected 'show'.)
At 6 years old my son isn't completely understanding everything that he's doing, but I'm amazed at how much he is taking in and how much he's enjoying it.
Next step is to move over to a Raspberry Pi because otherwise his little brother won't get a look in on the family computer.
/fa-fire/ MONTH TRENDING$type=list
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At Tech Age Kids we've been testing and writing about kids coding toys for over 10 years. This post is our round up of the current optio...
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I asked my kids what they wanted to do, other than playing Minecraft, over a long weekend. Not that I didn't want them playing Minecraf...
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- gift guide
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- grace hopper
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- halloween costumes
- hardware
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- hexbug aquabots
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- high school
- history
- home
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- hot toys
- hour of code
- html
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- indiegogo
- industry event
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- kids
- kindle
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- kit
- kits
- kodu
- kubo
- label printer
- languages
- laptop
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- last minute
- leap motion
- leapfrog
- leappad
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- leapreader
- learning
- learning resources
- learning tablet
- learning tablets
- leds
- lego
- lego boost
- lego chain reactions
- lego mindstorms ev3
- lego power functions
- lego technic
- lego wedo
- let's start coding
- lights
- lightseekers
- little kids
- littlebits
- logiblocs
- logic
- logical thinking
- loom
- machines
- magnetic
- make it
- makeblock
- makedo
- maker
- makey makey
- making
- mardles
- mars
- mars rover
- marty
- math
- maths
- mbot
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- me arm
- meccano
- meccanoid
- meccanoid 2.0
- merge vr
- mews
- michael faraday
- micro:bit
- microbit
- microcontroller
- microscope
- microsoft
- middle school
- miles kelly
- mindstorms
- minecraft
- minecraft mods
- mixed reality
- mobile
- modular electronics
- monsters university
- morse code
- mothers day
- motion capture
- motors
- mover kit
- movie
- movies
- mu
- mu toys
- munzee
- music
- my first robot
- national dog day
- nature
- new
- new year
- news
- news coding
- nikola tesla
- nintendo
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- ohbot
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- on the web
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- origami
- osmo
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- ouya
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- papercraft
- paperwhite
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- parrot
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- pets
- phone
- photography
- photon
- physics
- pi day
- picks
- pimoroni
- pinoccio
- pixel kit
- pixelart
- play
- playstation 4
- plezmo
- pocket code
- pocket money
- pokemon
- pokemon go
- poll
- pre order
- pre-teens
- prehistory
- preschoolers
- primary
- printable
- products
- professor einstein
- programming
- project
- projects
- puzzles
- python
- racing
- raspberry pi
- reading
- reivew
- remote control
- research
- resource
- resources
- retro
- review
- rights
- robot
- robot dog
- robot fish
- robot wars
- ROBOTERRA
- roboticals
- robotics
- robots
- role models
- role play
- romo
- romotive
- root
- rover
- safety
- sam labs
- samuel morse
- sandbox
- schools
- science
- scratch
- scratchjr
- screen time
- screenless
- screens
- sensors
- servos
- simbrix
- skills
- skylanders
- skylanders superchargers
- skylanders swap force
- smart pens
- smartphone
- smartwatch
- snap circuits
- social media
- solar power
- soldering
- sonic pi
- sony koov
- sound
- space
- sparki
- speaker
- speech sythesis
- sphero
- sphero mini
- spider
- star wars
- stars
- STEAM
- stem
- stikbot
- stop motion
- stop motion studio
- storage
- story
- strawbees
- students
- subscription
- subscriptions
- sugru
- summer
- swift
- tablet
- tablets
- tangible coding
- tech
- tech age
- tech craft
- tech is bad
- tech is good
- tech toys
- tech will save us
- technology
- technology will save us
- teens
- teknikio
- tekno
- teksta
- tenka labs
- tesla
- textiles
- thames & kosmos
- the extraordinaires
- tim berners lee
- tinkercad
- tinybop
- toddlers
- toot-toot
- top pick
- touch
- toy
- toys
- travelling
- TTS
- TV
- tween
- tweens
- tynker
- typing
- ux
- vehicles
- videos
- view-master
- views
- virtual reality
- voice assistants
- voice recognition
- vr
- vtech
- web
- websites
- wifi
- wii
- wii u
- windows 8
- wonder workshop
- wowwee
- writing
- writing. education
- xbox one
- xyzprinting