Code for Teens ~ A New TOS Review!!

Over the last few months to a year all of my children have dabbled in a little bit of coding here and there. But lately, my eldest has really wanted to learn more and I just had no idea how to accommodate her yearning. But then the opportunity to review Code for Teens: The Awesome Beginner's Guide to Programming (Volume 1) by Code for Teens presented itself and I knew that this would be the fuel to her coding fire.

One of the things I noted right off the bat was that this was totally written as a book and written to the reader. The over 200+ pages are written well with bold headings and bright and colorful pictures, covering JavaScript coding (which over 90% of all websites use) which can be taught directly to the student/reader without the input of the parent. So YOU do not have to go learn another language ... yes language - computer coding is a language that one will have to learn in order to code proficiently ... so that your child can reach their dreams!

Another great feature of this book is that it is meant to go at the pace of your child. If they mess up, great, they can try again. Figure out where they went wrong and fix it. This happens repeatedly throughout the books quizzes, drills, and reviews. The student is encouraged to try typing the code and then changing it a little to see how the code functions with the changes. This teaches creativity.

He (Jeremey Moritz, homeschool dad of 6, and creator of this wonderful superpower book) wants your student not only to have creativity, but an attitude of always learning ... what he lovingly calls learnitude ... for life. Learning how to code is and should be fun and this is clearly evident in his writing style coupled with the cute graphics created by his wife, Christine.

Over the 10 chapters your student will get into the nitty gritty of learning to code using the program language called JavaScript. And don't worry about needing a teacher guide. All the answers are in the back of the book so all your teen has to do is flip over and see if their answers match. There's also a Glossary of Terms if in chapter 7 they read a word and they just can't remember what it means. When words are important they are bold to draw attention to them. By page 11 your student is well on their way learning how to code. Really, I'm not lying to you! They will even be using the lingo about finding "bugs"(problems) and "squashing" (fixing) them.

Here I will stop rambling of code, which I do not know, and let my student, eldest daughter, take the reigns of this post and tell you all about the ins and outs of this book.

Arianna's Review:

The first thing I noticed is that this was Volume 1, which means there are more and that was exciting to me. I feel that I really like to code I just am not very good at it, but I keep trying. I have not been able to code all on my own I have to use the book to look up what I need to type as a reference. But it's fun. I'm getting ahead of myself.

So when I first got the book, mom said "Here" and said I could read it on my own. There is an Introduction, a "Top Secret No Kids Allowed" section for parents (I didn't read that so I have no idea what it says), and then you get started. I quickly read through the instructions on how to open up the coding website and then it explained what I was to read, what I typed into the console and what my response should be. Although the very first thing my colors did not match what his said it would be so that confused me a bit for a few minutes, until I realized he was just trying to show the reader the difference. LOL!

What I like most about this book is that he gives you those responses. Those responses show whether you have messed up and if so you can go back and fix your mistake in your code. Like the first few times I kept forgetting to hit the enter key and so I did not get a response. Luckily, my father was close and explained what I was missing ... hit enter key after each line ... which was in the book in print on page 15 in the Follow the Leader section ... I just forgot. But, after another verbal reminder I was able to fix my code ... again.

In each chapter there are sections that are labeled and BOLD with what you will be learning. Every chapter has a quiz after the reading. Next you go on to the Key Concepts. Then there are the Drills. Last, there is the DIY section (it's an activity ... I'll get to that in a minute.)

Back to the Quiz. It's at the end of each chapter, and it's only on the information from that chapter that you learned. After the first 2 chapters, there's another section called Aggregate Review which is cumulative questions and code that review. The Key Concepts are little things you may have missed while you were reading but are really important for this chapter to fully understand it all.  The Drills are for you to try and figure it out before you type it all into the console and receive a response. I think I forgot to tell you something. The console is the screen you type the code into and the response is what the computer comes up with after it reads your code.

Her "workbook"

Oh and there's this thing called a "Workbook", which is a document (I used Google Docs) where you keep your answers to the quizzes, reviews, and DIY projects. You can copy your drills into the workbook if you'd like to keep them there too, but they are just lines of code.

One of the DIY projects

Now about the DIY's. These are projects that use stuff from the current chapter and the previous chapters. It's not that there is a set answer because you work on it on your own and it's coding. So like the first one was getting the average age of your family. Since all families don't have the same age for all people in the family the end result will be different ... yet the process is the same. Oh and by the way, all the answers are in the back of the book. There are also interesting words there too - it's called a Glossary of Terms.

There are cute and funny illustrations all throughout the book. They match the titles of the sections. Makes me laugh. Sometimes out loud.

I like that it was written by a homeschool dad who was trying to help get his own children interested in code. This is the result of his experimenting ... this AWESOME book. Oh and the illustrations are done by his wife. Isn't that cool?? I think so! I hope to keep going with this book and then maybe I can get Vol 2 for my birthday which is just next month! (Hint, Hint to my mom.) I also like this is written directly to me. It's not boring and another thing that you have to go drudge through, but you want to go grab your coding book and the computer and write. Which is what I am going to do in just a few minutes.

I get to learn new concepts called strings and constructs (this is in chapter 3). In chapter 4, I get to learn about functions which is not just a math term ... it's for computers too! I had hoped to be further along, but we've had a few very busy months and I haven't had access to the computer as much. But all the spare time I have I'm putting into code. Happy Coding!

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I think she did a wonderful job really telling you all about this book. But don't take our word for it, be sure and read all the other reviews by clicking the link below. You can also check out sample pages of Code for Teens: The Awesome Beginner's Guide to Programming (Volume 1) for yourself (scroll down about 1/3 of the way). For just $25 (and free shipping if you purchase straight from the author ... scroll all the way to the bottom of that page to buy using Paypal) I think it will be a great resource.  You can find Code for Teens on Facebook so reach out to them there as well!