In an increasingly digitized and technologically advanced world, the ability to program has become a fundamental skill for personal and professional success.
From the automation of everyday tasks to innovation in fields such as artificial intelligence and robotics, programming drives progress and transformation in all areas of modern life.
In this context, a crucial question arises: Why is it so important for children to learn programming from an early age? Also, remember that toddl.co has available the best extracurriculars, activities and camps for programming and robotics.
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Benefits of learning to program as a child
Teaching programming to children has many benefits that go beyond the mere mastery of a programming language. We tell you what they are.
Logical thinking and problem solving
Children who learn programming experience a significant benefit in the development of their logical thinking and problem solving skills:
- Ability to organize ideas in a logical and sequential manner, which strengthens their logical thinking.
- Problem-solving skills by analyzing, diagnosing and correcting errors, which fosters a methodical and systematic approach to problem solving.
- It promotes analytical and abstract thinking, allowing children to find patterns and connections between seemingly unrelated problems.
Creativity development
Children who learn programming experience a remarkable development of creativity due to several aspects inherent to this discipline:
- Opportunity to create their own digital projects, such as games, applications and websites.
- They can experiment with colors, sounds, graphics and functions to express their individuality and bring their ideas to life in a unique and original way.
- Programming involves facing complex challenges and problems that require creative solutions. Children learn to think outside the box to find original and effective solutions; “thinking outside the box”.
- Opportunity to experiment and explore different concepts and techniques.
- Many programming projects involve collaboration and teamwork, where children can share ideas, collaborate on problem solving, and combine their skills and knowledge to create more complex and creative projects.
Preparing for the digital future
We live in an ever-evolving digital age, where technology plays a central role in almost every aspect of society and the economy. Learning programming from an early age prepares children for the jobs of the future, many of which will require technical skills.
Stimulus of logical-mathematical thinking
Another benefit that children who learn programming get is a remarkable experimentation of the stimulation of logical-mathematical thinking:
Programming involves the creation of algorithms, which are sequences of logical instructions used to solve problems. By learning to program, children practice the ability to organize ideas logically and sequentially, strengthening their ability to think in a structured and analytical way.
Creation of personal projects
Creating personal projects involves facing practical challenges and problems that require creative and effective solutions. As children work on their projects, they develop skills in problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and perseverance, which are critical in everyday life and in academic and professional success.
By creating their own projects, children feel empowered as they see their ideas and efforts materialize into something tangible and functional. This gives them a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that boosts their self-esteem and self-confidence.
Development of social skills
Although programming is often seen as a solitary activity, children who learn programming can also benefit significantly in developing social skills through teamwork, programming events and workshops.
Many programming apprenticeship programs include opportunities for children to present and demonstrate their projects to others, either in person or online. This experience helps them develop communication, presentation and teamwork skills, while allowing them to share their work with a wider audience.
How to learn to program?
For children to learn to program, it is essential to do it in a fun and accessible way. There are many ways to do this, from coding games to robotics projects. Some robotics and programming academies offer programs designed specifically for children, where they can learn to program while building and playing with robots.
These programs are usually interactive and designed to encourage creativity and critical thinking. However, there are also a variety of online resources, educational apps and books that can be useful for children to start learning to program at home.
The important thing is to find an approach that is fun and motivating for the child, whether through a robotics academy or exploring on their own with online resources. This way, they can develop important skills for the future while having fun and discovering new possibilities.
Explore toddl.co and discover activities, camps, courses and schools where your children where your children can immerse themselves in the world of programming. Here are our recommendations.
The best programming, robotics and technology schools for kids and teens
School of Science – Valencia
Escuela de Ciencia was born from a group of people passionate about bringing science and technology closer to society. We had the pleasure of speaking with the director, Raquel Ibañez, PhD in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, passionate about science and technology, with great interest and vocation for education and teaching.
She has always been interested in popularization, that is, connecting society with scientific advances and technology. So in 2010, Escuela de Ciencia was born precisely from Raquel’s passion and her observation of a growing need and interest of those children and young people who naturally like science and technology.
It began as a small outreach project, through a platform of volunteers willing to bring science and technology to society and involve children. As Raquel says, “If a child likes theater, he has theater classes. If a child likes to dance, they have dance classes. If a child likes soccer, they have sports classes available. When Escuela de Ciencia was born, there was no place for children who liked and were attracted to science and technology to go. The need for these children exists, and not only does it exist, but there are many more and more of them”.
Little by little the project began to grow and in 2013, thanks to Lanzadera’s support program, Escuela de Ciencia was founded as an educational center specialized in Science and Technology in Valencia.
Its main mission is to bring science and technology closer to society, both through education, dissemination, participation with public and private entities, and other larger projects.
Raquel believes that learning science and technology helps children and young people to think for themselves, to make decisions for themselves, to make mistakes and from there they can learn to solve them on their own. It allows their brains to organize information logically and determine what they can extract and what conclusions they can reach. He emphasizes, “all of that is done through science and technology, and to be helped to think and to have your own criteria, I think those are the best things you can acquire for your future”.
Unlike other schools, Escuela de Ciencia has developed its own pedagogical methodology. As Raquel explains, “it is called CARE, and it consists of placing the connection between the student and the teacher at the center of education. We care a lot about emotional management, that the student is aware of who he/she is, how he/she feels, and then what we are going to do together. So, we work a lot on their emotional and personal development. Also because many of our students are very good in the logical-mathematical part, but sometimes it happens that the emotional or social part is not as important or as well worked as the mathematical part”. The teachers at Escuela de Ciencia noticed this need, which is why they adopted this methodology and acquired specific training to work on the emotional and personal development of each student.
At the same time, Escuela de Ciencia has direct, personal and constant communication with families, adapting to their needs and those of the children. Raquel emphasizes: “Before the students leave the classroom, we have already sent the parents what they are doing and how they are doing it. We send them photos, videos, and the parents share with us all the doubts they have. If they go to a psychology office, for example, because they have a diagnosis, we talk to the psychology office to better understand the student. So we can better adapt to the student.
On the other hand, in 2019, Escuela de Ciencia created its own R&D department, to promote education innovation projects. Granting them another great differential since they work with their own projects, also being able to have more control in what they teach and how they teach it. Raquel mentions, “For example, we don’t teach how to make a video game, they are our video games, they are our robots, it is our material. We do have material obviously from distributors and educational material, but almost everything we do is our own.”
Summer camps and other technology and science activities in Valencia
Escuela de Ciencia has a wide and varied offer of extracurricular activities, camps and events for children and young people from 6 to 18 years old, so they can explore and experiment in the field of science and technology .
Space Camp is one of their proposals for this summer and it is extremely interesting and innovative, being the only center in Europe to offer it. It is an intensive week of real training for future astronauts with unforgettable and unique experiences for children from 10 to 16 years old.
Every day they do a different activity, from flying aircraft with a professional pilot at the airfield, to experiencing zero gravity as an astronaut does, even repairing a machine at the bottom of a pool with professional divers. They also prepare space missions, build rockets and launch them, go to the observatory, build and program a rover (exploration vehicle on the surface of Mars), among many other super interesting activities.
In addition, Escuela de Ciencia has a 100% free scholarship program for children or young people from vulnerable families.
Click hereexplore all their incredible proposals and choose the best option for your children.
Technology Camp – Basque Country, Madrid and Catalonia
Camp Tecnológico is an educational project with the aim of awakening the interest of young people in STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and mathematics through Educational Technology. It was founded in 2011 by Jesús Ángel Bravo Duque, whom we had the pleasure of interviewing.
Jesús Ángel has always been involved in technology, initially founding a company that implemented computer systems and software development, but in 2009 he sold it. At that time, he was on the board of his son’s school along with other very involved parents.
At the same time, Jesús Ángel was networking with contacts in the United States, so he observed what was being done there and noticed that in Spain the curriculum implementation was still focused on computer skills, but the programming part was not being passed on. He tried to influence teachers to develop a project, but when he realized that it would not be possible, he decided to develop his own idea. As he says: “Well, if I can’t do it during school hours, I’m going to do it on vacation, and that’s where the name Camp Tecnológico comes from. In 2011 there was nothing similar in Spain, we launched the first camp in Bilbao and 250 families signed up that summer“.
Thus, Camp Tecnológico was born from the observation of reality and the personal concern of Jesús Ángel to give his son the opportunity to learn programming and robotics together with other boys and girls of his age in Spain.
After the repercussion and interest, after a year they quickly extended it to the main cities of the Basque Country, Pamplona, Madrid and Barcelona, also offering extracurricular activities, workshops, weekend technology club, and looking for a continuity story so that those who started in primary school could continue.
Camp Tecnológico prepares children and youth to develop problem-solving thinking. Jesús Ángel develops: “I mean, I can apply it to how a robot works or I can apply it to how I prepare an exercise for an exam. In the end it is the same thing, that is,it is that your mental capacity is somehow awake so that when you are presented with a problem you look for a solution“.
Through workshops and activities, they seek to exercise and build this capacity, using the trial and error method. She recommends the practice of STEM activities from childhood, given the capacity for analysis that it provides: “that is, in programming, everything has to be foreseen. Somehow, to solve the problem you have to do it step by step until you reach the solution. Then, it generates a mental development capacity that applies to any activity. If you practice this from an early age, it will be much easier to apply it to any area in secondary school, high school, university and in life.
As Jesús Ángel mentions, one of the main differences between Camp Tecnológico and other centers: “is the ability to observe the best practices that are being implemented internationally. The initial idea is not born because it occurs to me when I wake up, but because of what I observe that had already been implemented in other countries. And that observation of the best and new ideas means that we have a discourse that we constantly and permanently update. From a very critical spirit of what we do with respect to what we see being done, choosing and transferring the best practices”.
After-school, weekend clubs and summer technology camps
Camp Tecnológico has been adapting its activities over time, to cover the free and leisure time of young people and children, offering from traditional extracurricular activities from Monday to Friday, to technology clubs on weekends, which are generally attended by students with a greater interest, focused on deepening and a specific format of alternate weeks.
They have a wide variety of wide variety of optionsThey have a wide variety of options, ranging from Arduino to Minecraft, Python, Roblox, Unity, among others, depending on the interests and focus of each student, whether robotics, programming, video games.
Kids&Tech, in turn, is focused on the little ones, where they have a varied assortment of robots with different ways of programming, create video games and play didactic applications, learn about augmented reality and play with electrical circuits.
In Lab Junior, students learn to make assemblies related to the different uses of robots in daily life using Lego Wedo robots, in addition to programming their own games using the Scratch and Kodu platforms.
On the other hand, Genius mixes robotics and video games with different programs and projects, giving them the opportunity to learn about other tools that are interrelated.
During the Christmas, Easter and summer vacations, Camp Tecnológico offers specific camps. This year, from June 25 through July, you can sign your children up for the urban summer technology camps, divided by workshops and ages. Click hereto discover the options and choose the most convenient location for you.
UpLevel Las Rosas – Madrid
UpLevel Las Rosas opened its doors in 2019 and has quickly become a benchmark in language and technology education in the neighborhood of Las Rosas, San Blas, in Madrid.
In an interview with Maribel Gómez, director of the academy, she told us that UpLevel Las Rosas was born out of the need and search to set up her own business focused on learning for children, noting that both languages and technology were two fundamental elements for their development.
Maribel emphasizes: “I wanted to offer training that would be relevant for the future of children and young people. Although the main focus of the academy is languages, offering training in technology, which includes robotics and programming, from a very young age, has provided a plus that I believe is fundamental and why many families also choose us”.
Unlike other academies, UpLevel Las Rosas offers a comprehensive training in technology for children and young people, since it does not focus only on robotics and programming, or on specific programs or tools, but offers students a broad vision of new technologies.
In addition, it develops classes in small groups of a maximum of 8 students, grouped by age and level, to ensure not only the appropriateness of the content and tools, but also a personalized attention that allows each child to work at their own pace and develop their full potential.
Throughout the same course, students are taught a wide variety of disciplines adapted to each age group (robotics, 3D design, App development, video game design, electronics, web development, virtual reality… and others) and different tools and programs (they work with robotics kits from Lego®, Bmaker from BQ and others from Arduino, different robots for each age group and programs such as Scratch, Kodu, TinkerCAD, MakeCode, App Inventor… and much more).
As Maribel mentions: “We want the students to have a very broad vision of the different technological disciplines that will allow them to discover their interests and potential, and we do it in a very practical and playful way for them, working with projects, in teams, and posing challenges and objectives that awaken the interest and curiosity of the students and motivate them to continue learning “.
In addition to the technical training acquired by the children and young people, the approach of the classes at UpLevel Las Rosas contributes to prepare children to face any challenge of new technologies, working on fundamental skills such as logical thinking, problem solving, ability to order ideas, tolerance to frustration, decision making, teamwork, creativity development.
UpLevel Las Rosas has a solid teaching system that is dynamic and flexible, adapted to the needs of the students and focused on continuous improvement. Maribel emphasizes: “Both in languages and in technology, we believe that when a student feels integrated, feels committed, feels understood and cared for, they get involved with their group, their teacher and the academy in general, and in this way they learn much better. Whenever something marks us on a more sentimental level, it leaves more of an impression on us, we remember it better and we are also interested in it.”
Maribel recommends that children study technology from an early age, for several reasons. First of all, she says: “I believe that we all have to learn to deal with new technologies and the younger we start, the easier it is for us. In addition, if children already show interest in technologies from an early age, starting to work with them will give them a very broad vision of how many things they can do, what they can be used for, even to guide their future”.
On the other hand, he emphasizes that technology, programming and robotics also enrich their own personal development. They allow them to develop essential skills such as frustration tolerance, since they make mistakes, try again, get it wrong again, try again until they get it right and are satisfied. At the same time, they help each other, develop collaborative skills, learn to work as a team, to reason their decisions, to explain them to the group, to argue their ideas… very important skills for all areas of life.
At the same time, Maribel adds: “And it also helps them a lot in something that is very neglected nowadays, which is the development of creativity, by working on projects in which we also give them a lot of freedom, they create, they invent and nothing is wrong, they feel free to create things and we are offering them an environment where they discover the importance of giving free rein to their ideas and they see how positive it is, so they are very likely to transfer it to other areas”.
Programming and robotics activities for children in Madrid
UpLevel Las Rosas offers an excellent opportunity for children and youth to immerse themselves in the world of technology in a fun and effective way, focused on emotional and practical learning. Find out more about the academy and its methodology and find the ideal class for your children to learn to program while having fun and acquiring crucial skills for their future.
You can also sign up for the summer camp 100% in English. In which they not only learn the language, but also perform a variety of activities such as theater, crafts, dances, also outdoors, in the pool, in sports courts. Also during two days they dedicate a large part of the morning to robotics and programming! Following the same philosophy as in the classes, the activities are adapted to the children according to their interest, their ability, their age, and different projects are carried out with a wide variety of tools and programs. Click here to learn more and learn more about the summer camp.
