If you’re looking for the best coding software for middle school students then allow me to assist you. It should be no surprise that coding classes are growing in popularity across countries. As a result, there are hundreds of online coding software programs available. And while some individuals may want to learn about the best programming languages for middle school students, others might be more interested in finding out about free coding programs for high school students. Either way, I’m confident that this article will assist you in your next steps!
This article will introduce you to a few very helpful tools that can be used to assist middle school students with coding. The good news is that they are all available online, and some of them are completely free.
Scratch Junior
- Type of Resource: iOS and Android tablet app
- Recommended Age Range: 5 to 7
- Necessary Coding Experience: None
- Skills Learned: Interacting with a graphical interface, programming, general problem-solving
Scratch Junior believes that “coding is the new literacy.” With this accessible app, kids aged five to seven can craft their own games, interactive stories, and solve problems.
Part graphical and part code, young coders can use Scratch Junior’s program to combine code blocks with on-screen elements and make avatars dance, since, move, and jump. Kids can even insert their own photos, add sounds, and use the paint editor to customize their characters.
Inspired by MIT’s Scratch programming language, Scratch Junior is geared towards the youngest demographic of new coders. All features are developmentally appropriate for young children, supporting their emotional, social, and interpersonal development.
Best of all, Scratch is available as a free iOS and Android app for tablets. The app supports English and Spanish learners and is chock-full of colorful widgets that are sure to engage young learners.
Vidcode
Vidcode is an award-winning coding platform and curriculum built around the things students love to do! Vidcode provides an complete computer programming curriculum for 3rd to 12th grade, focused on creative coding, design thinking, and practical cross-disciplinary applications. Bite-sized tutorials are easy for non-technical teachers to implement, fun for students to code, and data-driven for analysis of student outcomes. Whatever students love, Vidcode can help them code it!
Codeable Crafts
- Type of Resource: iOS and Android mobile app
- Recommended Age Range: 3 to 8
- Necessary Coding Experience: None
- Skills Learned: Storytelling, animation, illustration, coding
Codeable Crafts provides easy-to-use tools that allow creative kids to create simple animations, drawings, and programs. This game introduces young learners to the most fundamental programming principles via simple, easy-to-understand code blocks.
Children can work on both their verbal and visual storytelling skills by creating story arcs based on general themes and app-prompted questions. Once they have coded to their hearts’ content, they can anonymously share the drawings and stories they have made.
The iOS- and Android-supported mobile app is suitable for kids who want to deep-dive into color, animation, and programming. Each pre-programmed coding block features a brief explanation to allow children to pick up the underlying programming principles.
Alice
Alice is a desktop app developed by Carnegie Mellon. More advanced than other programming tools for kids, Alice teaches the fundamentals of programming in a 3D setting. This makes it ideal for teens. While working in the app, students can see the code behind the projects they create on the screen. Programming concepts are learned while students create animated movies and basic video games that they can then share on the internet. Note: Java runtime is needed for Alice.
Lightbot : Programming Puzzles
‘Lightbot is a programming puzzle game- a game whose game mechanics require using programming logic to solve levels. Simply guiding a robot to light up tiles and solve levels using commands, Lightbot cultivates a real understanding of procedures, loops, and conditionals.’
Robot Turtles (Board Game)
- Type of Resource: Board game
- Recommended Age Range: 4 and up
- Necessary Coding Experience: None
- Skills Learned: Problem-solving, basic programming concepts
Want something a little more hands-on and off-screen? Robot Turtles is the most-backed board game in Kickstarter history; to date, it has empowered over 50 million customers worldwide to introduce kids to coding.
Geared towards players aged four and up, this intuitive board game is designed to develop kids’ critical thinking by stealthily introducing them to foundational programming principles such as coding and functions. Robot Turtles allows kids to write programs with brightly-illustrated playing cards and can be scaled up to higher difficulty levels as children gain more knowledge of programming basics.
App Inventor
App Inventor is a cloud-based tool maintained by MIT. Much like the popular coding app Scratch, App Inventor has drag-and-drop coding blocks. However, App Inventor includes all methods, functions, and coding elements that a student would need to create an Android app. This makes it ideal for middle school kids and up. Students can build apps right in their web browser. The website offers support, but there are no step-by-step instructions to guide students, another reason the tool is best for older students.
Mimo: Learn to code on the go
‘Learn to code, make apps, build websites, automate tasks, and more – whenever and wherever you have a minute! With 1,000+ bite-size lessons, real-world projects, and challenges, mastering the skills of the future has never been so easy to fit into your day.’
Kids’ First Coding and Robotics Kit
- Type of Resource: Board game
- Recommended Age Range: 5 to 7
- Necessary Coding Experience: None
- Skills Learned: Robotics, coding, mathematics, adventure-based storytelling
Designed to teach the fundamentals of coding and robotics to children in grades K-2, the Kids’ First Coding and Robotics Kit requires no software, apps, or smart devices.
The game features an engaging, full-color 64-page manual that guides young players through exciting building lessons and programming exercises. Six different storylines are included, encompassing a plethora of model-building lessons for curious kids. Users build widgets on top of a plug-and-play coding block that scans for instructions before performing an exercise. With 38 different map cards included, kids can run increasingly complex programs that their self-built robot performs.
Each of the thirty coding lessons is aligned with teaching standards developed by the International Society for Technology and Education (ISTE), Code.org, and the CS Teachers Association.
Want a more mathematical version? This kit includes a special math mode that offers instruction in logic gates, number comparison, algorithms, and hands-on exploration.
Codecademy
Codecademy is an interactive online tool that teaches coding fundamentals, Ruby, PHP, jQuery, Python, JavaScript, and more. The tool is set up on a split screen so students get to see the code and the changes as they happen at the same time. The sophistication and scope of this online tool makes it better suited for older students, middle grade and up.
SpriteBox
‘SpriteBox is a unique puzzle-platformer; a mix of exploration and learning to code. By giving Sprite programs of instructions to follow, you can advance through unique worlds and help free Sprite’s bottled-up friends.’
Conclusion:
Learning coding in middle school is essential for an early start. Studies show that students that learn to code in middle school are often out of the starting blocks faster than their peers. But it doesn’t stop there, high tech companies like Microsoft actively seek out high school coding students with programmes like DreamSpark. If you want to become a professional developer, having some basic knowledge of programming languages will give you an edge over other applicants.