Coding Goûter is not a class, is not a lesson, and has no teachers: Kids and adults discover and learn together, from each others.
We have organized 10 Coding Goûters as of december 2012, most of them with a wide range of kid’s age – 5 to 14 – and constantly slightly more girls than boys.
Coding Goûter is a (mostly) monthly event where kids and parents play with a variety of programming tools, algorithmic games and puzzles, development environments, and languages.
'Goûter' is French for a child’s afternoon snack or party, so we eat cakes and candies too!
We love code. We do it for pleasure, we do it for money, we do it all the time or just… very occasionnally :-)
We are many to have learned to code when we were kids, or teenagers, or later, but in all cases we <em>enjoyed</em> it. For some of us it’s now their job!
How do we share the marvel and creativity of code with our children?
It’s hard. We don’t really have time at home, because there’s always something else to do.
And school? Well, it’s mostly not good. At best, there is <em>some</em> computer classes. But you know what? Classes are no fun. And it’s probably not even the best way to discover programming (Did you discover drawing in a formal class? I guess not.)
Something is missing, a time for kids and parents that feels like a hackathon or a coding retreat, where you can explore, meet, fail, start over. So let’s have fun together!
Coding Goûter is not school-oriented, and there not a designated teacher:
We learned by copying code, hacking around, we draw from these experiences to recreate an environment where learning happens organically.
We let the kids show us the creative direction.
We think demoing to others beats points or badges as a reward.
We take our time, a Coding Goûter last more than 3 hours.
We are not our kids’ teachers, so we just forgo the all lets-build-a-curriculum obsession :-)
