“Coding” is a word not many adults associate with fun. With many programmers themselves complaining about the tediousness of coding, how can it conceivably be fun for kids?
Of course, professional coding may not always be fun (although it often is too!), but coding games for kids are especially designed to be as engaging as they are educational. What’s more, coding games for kids come in various age-based categories and other types, allowing the parent or teacher to pick the coding games best suited for their child, ensuring that the time they spend in front of the screen counts.
Are Coding Games Really Fun and Engaging for Kids?
Any parent and teacher knows that for even the best educational material to actually be effective on children, it has to be fun and engaging for them. And this is where good coding games for kids differ from sub-par ones.
What’s more, the difference between the two isn’t in whether they manage to capture the interest of the child, but how effectively they can hold it.
Many coding games can be fun for kids for a couple of hours or so, but few can continue building up the interest and enthusiasm in kids to keep them returning to the game day after day. In that sense, there are indeed coding games for kids that aren’t as fun and captivating as they should be, and that can leave both parents and their kids a tad disappointed.
On the other hand, there are plenty of great coding games for kids that easily manage to grab kids’ interest, hold it, and build it up for a long time, all the while teaching kids important lessons not merely about coding, but about math, language models, logic, and creative thinking, as well as show kids what the daily routine of a programmer looks like in a positive way.
Such coding games succeed in captivating kids’ interest by not merely having colorful and flashy graphics but also by employing a smooth and enjoyable learning curve with well-balanced and gradual challenges, each rewarded in a positive and satisfying way.
Why Coding Games Are an Ideal Educational Tool for Kids?
Of course, coding games don’t just have to be fun; they also need to have actual beneficial effects for children. Otherwise, parents might as well let them play normal browser games or watch videos on YouTube or TikTok.
Fortunately, well-designed coding games are indeed an incredibly effective educational tool for children, and not just for coding itself. Instead, coding games are fantastic at giving children a very extensive and well-rounded set of skills that are must-haves for future programmers but are also great for all people, in general, regardless of what kind of profession they end up going for later on in life.
To help illustrate this, here are some of the benefits good coding games bring to the table:
- Coding Games Teach Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills
Teaching kids how to think is arguably the most important job of any learning program and that’s ex
actly what coding games are designed to do. Such games are meant to present kids with a series of logical problems that are perfectly balanced for the child at any stage of its development.
Larger problems are often broken down into smaller logical tasks, with the child often expected not only to solve each individual issue but to start seeing the bigger picture more and more with each solved problem and learn to examine things in a critical manner.
- Resilience and Perseverance
Great coding games expertly balance between being challenging for kids and being rewarding and fun. This is essential not only to keep kids engaged but also to gradually and effectively build into them the drive for critically examining problems and applying the right problem-solving skills to properly take care of any scenario.
With such a gradual approach, kids can quickly become expert problem solvers armed with not only analyzing skills, but also plenty of patience, perseverance, and resilience to face any problem, both in programming and in the real world.
- Creative Expression
Coding games aren’t just a matter of dealing with math and programming. They are also about thinking creatively, looking at issues from various angles, and finding creative ways to bypass the problems presented by the game.
What’s more, most coding games are usually made in such a way as to give the child freedom of expression and the freedom to build out their own idea rather than just follow instructions. As such, coding games are an excellent way to teach children the value and joy of creative expression.
Of course, specific coding games can have various other benefits too while others aren’t always as good as we might have hoped. As with any other instrument, however, if you find the right coding game for your child, it can be the most fun, engaging, and educational tool your kid has ever used.