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Hi RolyGood to hear from you. I guess this response is more of a plug for code club, but may be of interest.
I am still running code club at Paignton Library (first and third) Saturday and also a stem group (along side Lucy Morgan) on the 2nd Saturday of the month.
While code club is originally (and officially) 9-13 year olds, We do have younger children with parents. As long as someone can stay, he is welcome. But under 8's need to be with an adult anyway (library policy). With the curriculum including coding, then more kids are familiar with scratch anyway.
John has also made a good few suggestions, in fact at the library we have Micro:bits Pi's Lego Mindstorms Lego WeDoPlus access to computers + software such as blender, audacity, rocks n diamonds, sonic pi and tupi-draw (for simple animation)
If you have a tablet and would like to have ago you will need the WeDo App and for the mindstorms something called NXT remote control (3rd party app I think in play store) as we only have the original NXT brick, We also have brick Pi ( https://www.dexterindustries.com/)
With the School curriculum, they are just learning fundamentals, especially at in year 3.
loops variables sequencing debugging input / output repetition As part of a STEM order a while back we got 5 copies of this https://usborne.com/gb/coding-for-beginners-using-python-9781409599340So Paignton Library have 1x copy of this in stock, for general loan, the others are for use at code club / stem group.
But we ordered 5 for stem group, so 4 available and 1 for the library shelf. A good book, for learning basics of python.
Hope this helps Paul On 28/06/2022 17:01, Roland Tarver via list wrote:
Hello folks,I hope you are all good. Rarely post here, but hopefully you would not mind pointing me in the right direction please?It's time to get my son into computing. He is 8 years old in August. Given that he has a nerdy dad (me!); I am going to get him a pi - if I can. lol!I've done some digging about the net and noted a huge stock shortage, which I'm guessing is no surprise to those here. However, I have had some success on ebay. There is new a Pi 4B 4GB for under £100.I was about to pull the trigger; but before doing so I thought I would ask here for any advance surrounding any issues of which I may not be aware. Sadly, these days, I do not have time to be as nerdy as I would like - and my knowledge is pretty poor.I do have a little experience however. I have a piNas thing which I set up a good few years ago and its still runnning headlessly in the cupboard. lol.My son will use the pi for:-1. His homework - largely done through various websites; all of which work fine in firefox on my MS laptop (dont hurt me! hahaha - I just have not got round to installing something sensible on it yet! lol). (He currently uses my laptop for his home work.)2. Videos. - bbc i-player (i have read there could some issues getting this working?) - you tube (should "just work" in a browser?) 3. ProgrammingHe uses that scratch thing in school; to me it looks a bit of a faff if im honest. I was just going to start off with some python - or at least a normal programming language - rather than scratch. I learnt on the bbc micro back in the day - worked for me lol. RTB - Gordon? lol4. GamesHe is dead keen for a bit of minecraft! lol (he has never played it; just seen it at his mates house). I am aware of the pi edition of minecraft.I have no specific questions, but any general comments or advice would be gratefully recieved. Thank very much.Cheers roly :-)
-- Paul Sutton, Cert Cont Sci (Open) https://personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/ -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dcglug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: https://www.dcglug.org.uk/faq/