
Ask HN: Pointers for designing a programming club curriculum - mshark
I am planning on starting an after school programming club and my children&#x27;s school, initally targeting grades 5 - 8 (ages 10 - 14). Some assumptions I currently making:<p><pre><code>     - The club would meet either once or twice per week for an hour for the entire school year.
     - Expected attendance between 5 and 10 kids.
     - I will be providing &#x2F; directing purchase of hardware, and am imagining purchasing 10 Raspberry Pi&#x27;s along with monitors and keyboards.
</code></pre>
The goal of the club is to introduce these kids to programming, and I&quot;m looking for a project or series of projects that could be worked on over the course of the year to help build interest in programming.<p>I want to reinvent the wheel as little as possible and am asking if anyone has suggestions for curriculum for this sort of club. Possibilities I&#x27;ve thought briefly about so far: some sort of game (though I have not experience in developing games) and building websites that we gradually make more sophisticated (this is more up my alley).<p>I&#x27;m asking for pointers to help me develop a curriculum. If you&#x27;ve done something like this before, I&#x27;d love to hear what sort of wins and challenges you experienced as well.<p>Thanks in advance!
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chipuni
I'd recommend Minecraft.

If that's too much of a game for the school to allow, and it MUST be
programming, then I'd look at things like Alice (
[http://www.alice.org/](http://www.alice.org/) ) or Squeak (
[https://squeak.org/](https://squeak.org/) ).

Best of luck to you!

