Teaching programming for kids

Question

I was wondering about the best approach/tools/languages/IDEs to be used for teaching kinds how to program.

I divided the ages as follows:

• 4-6

  6-9

  9-12

  12-5

  16+

Do you think the division is right? and what tool/language best suits for each group?

Answer 1

• 4-9 Visual Programming Languages
  • Scratch.mit.edu / Snap.berkeley.edu
  • LEGO Mindstorm
  • Any kind of visual language with basic commands
• 9-12
  • Alice this is a more advanced visual programming language dealing with 3d space and lighting.
  • Basic Language
    • BASIC
    • COBOL (I'd pick this one as it's still being used)
    • Visual Basic 6 (not vb.net) - This language is also used in excel macro's
    • Qbasic - Old dos programming language a lot of programmers started on.
    • any kind of language like that that is just one step up from assembly, so no complex things to understand
  • Database
    • If they want to get their hands wet in databases teach them access. Don't teach them very much though. This is a database for non programmers.
  • Web Route
    • HTML - very simple and rewarding
    • CSS - design for HTML
• 12-15
  • Structural / Scripting based languages
    • C
    • Python
    • PHP / Perl / Ruby
    • JavaScript
  • Database: Basic SQL
    • MySql
    • MSSql
• 16+ High level languages
  • c++ / c#
  • Java
  • any oo language
  • Web Route
    • jquery
    • knockout
    • angular
    • d3
  • Database - Best Processes
    • Foreign keys
    • Normalization
    • Performance
  • Oracle - is another database language, but should only be learned after they know all the database stuff mentioned above and a programming language.
  • Programming that works over a network

Hope that helps.