How to Teach Kids Programming

September 22, 2026

How to teach kids programming.

The book is free: download Programming Cards (PDF).

Why learning programming is still important.

With the progress AI has made and its ability to write code, you may be wondering, “Why would I want to learn programming?” Or, “Should I even bother teaching my kids programming?” Here is an analogy that I think answers the question. Imagine if I told you that there is no point in learning how to read or write. There are machines that can read and write much better than any human can. So don’t even bother learning it! I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t find that very convincing. I could rattle off some objections just off the top of my head. I would say, “Writing is already so ubiquitous and part of modern life that if you don’t learn it then you will fall behind.”

This is how I see the need to learn programming. It isn’t that because machines can code we won’t need to learn it. It’s actually the opposite. It’s that because our world will have so much technology around us, and it will be a part of normal everyday life, it is all the more important to understand it.

Coding vs Programming

As much as it pained me to use a non catchy, verbose title for my book, I had to do it. As much as friends and family gave suggestions for catchy titles using the word “code” or “coding,” I just couldn’t do it. That is because in my mind there is a big difference between coding and programming. Keep in mind that I created this game before ChatGPT-4 took the internet by storm. I was thinking about the difference between programming and coding before anyone knew how capable AI would be at writing code.

Programming is about being able to think abstractly to construct instructions to give to a machine. Coding is a form of programming, but it is more about thinking about the specific language of the machine. Programming is at a higher level, where you think about logic that supersedes the code.

Teaching programming to kids and therefore anyone

The hard part about teaching programming though is that it is abstract. It’s like doing algebra in your head. So how do I explain to someone else how to hold abstract concepts in their head? Well, that is where I came across the Montessori school. They teach grammar with physical game pieces. I thought this was an amazing concept and a great way to learn. The reality is that we are physical creatures, and we learn abstract concepts by first building a baseline of concrete understanding, then building on it.

The future of Programming Cards

Unfortunately I have too many projects I’m working on right now to give this project the attention it deserves. I was planning on releasing this as a physical board game, but I don’t think it is ready for that yet. I really care about this, and I think it is important for people to learn programming. They shouldn’t have to do it the way I learned, because I think there is a better way. So for now I’m releasing this book for free: download Programming Cards (PDF). All I ask is that if you create content around it, please give attribution back to me.

While I’m giving the book (version 1) away for free, I still plan on building a video game out of it. I just need a way to find the time.