The Katherine Delmar Burke School in San Francisco, CA recently celebrated an “Hour of Code” event, and found the following resources particularly useful:
* LIGHTBOT: This simple game teaches complex coding skills.
* CODE.ORG: This Web site is filled with free activities at different levels, including coding snowflakes and a JavaScript introductory tutorial to create a video game.
* MADE WITH CODE: Google’s Made With Code Web site features acivities especially designed for girls, such as animating a Yeti, programming a musical beat, and much more.
* SCRATCH: The Web site for this simple, free programming tool from MIT includes links to let kids download and remix animations created by other students [http://scratch.mit.edu/]. There’s also a junior version that’s a free app for tablets.
* KANO COMPUTER: KANO is a powerful little computer with open source software designed for exploration, creation, and play.
For offline fun, the students played Color Code by Smart Games, which challenges them to layer tiles of images of various colors and shapes to mimic a pattern, and Anti-Virus, also by Smart Games, which asks students to move pieces diagonally in groups to help catch and remove a “virus.”
