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.

Hello Ruby: A Book about Coding for Kids Aged 5-8 - Review

Our bedtime story tonight was Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding by Linda Liukas. We backed the project on Kickstarter and received the digital copy today. We interrupted our current bedtime book* to read Hello Ruby.

Hello Ruby! is a gorgeous picture book which tells the story of a fierce little girl who goes on an adventure which is packed with experiences that have a counterpart in computer science.

We've been waiting a while for this book. My kids are a bit older than I expected them to be when reading this, but still young enough to appreciate it.


"The world's most whimsical way to learn about COMPUTERS, PROGRAMMING, and TECHNOLOGY."
I used iBooks on the iPad to read the PDF of the book. The PDF is laid out as double page spreads but the iPad isn't really big enough to comfortably view two pages at once (yeah, we need an iPad Pro.) We made do with portrait mode, but some pages are just pictures and are meant to be enjoyed as the text is read on the opposite page.

Kids Review

So what did my boys aged 7 and 8 make of Hello Ruby? They loved it. The quirky characters are right up their street. As luck would have it, they are obsessed with pixel art at the moment and had been doing some before going to bed, guess what Ruby is doing in an illustration right at the beginning of the book!

They already know quite a bit about computing so they picked up on quite a few of the underlying messages. 

They were desperate to get stuck into the activities at the back of the book, but it was too late to do more than have a quick look tonight. My seven year old asked if he can have it on his iPad (definitely!) There are also printables that go with the exercises, we'll be giving those a go soon. 

Parents Review

I wish there were more books like this around. Computing-themed books for little children are thin on the ground. If my kids were a bit younger I could imagine Hello Ruby being on regular rotation as a bedtime story with them understanding more and more as they get older.

I love the focus on being persistent and not giving up. Definitely an important message for kids in coding and in life in general. 

The activities build on the story in a really neat way. Don't expect kids to be doing actual programming. Instead they will be doing activities that promote computational thinking but feel like playing. 

Having to explain the word stoical to my kids took me a bit by surprise. Not typical picture book vocab. Thanks Linda! I think I pulled it off. 

There are plenty of little details for coder parents to notice which is a nice touch. An minor quibble is that the book says that computational thinking is thinking like a computer would. Not really.



Where Can You Get It?

Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding is now available to pre-order by the general public for an October 2015 release. The folks on Kickstarter who ordered a physical copy paid a lot more than latecomers will pay so you'll be getting a great deal if you order now.
Update: Hello Ruby 2 is out! Both books are available on Amazon.

* Our Current Bedtime Book


Our current bedtime book has a lot in common with Hello Ruby, but for an older audience. Computational Fairy Tales by Jeremy Kubica introduces computational thinking concepts through a quest story featuring a young girl as the lead character. There are lots of similarities with Hello Ruby but for an audience aged around 10+. My kids are loving it so far but it may get too complicated at some point. Definitely suitable for older kids.


24 days of Scratch coding book cover and cute penguin
Name

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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children: Hello Ruby: A Book about Coding for Kids Aged 5-8 - Review
Hello Ruby: A Book about Coding for Kids Aged 5-8 - Review
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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children
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