Teaching Kids Simple Magic – The Parents Guide

Kids love magic tricks – doing the tricks themselves or watching them being done and trying to figure them out can keep a child entertained for hours. You might not know that learning about magic tricks is not only super fun, but it can also be perfect for kids as well. Learning magic is said to improve a child’s self-confidence, public speaking, critical thinking skills, work ethic, and even their school grades. With that in mind, here are some of the best magic sets, online videos, DVDs, books, apps, and simple magic tricks to help your kids learn a little bit of magic.

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Where to Start

If you happen to live in or near a big city, check to see if you have a magic shop that you can visit. Magic shops are fun and inspiring places to take a kid who is just getting into magic.  The cool thing about going to an actual magic shop is that the people working there will demonstrate the tricks and show your kids exactly how the tricks work. They will also be able to recommend something that the child will be capable of doing without frustration. You might pay a little bit more than you would if you bought a magic kit at Toys R Us or Walmart, but having someone show your kids how a trick works will go a long way in helping keep your child interested magic.

The Best Kits for Kids

If you don’t live near a magic shop, there are some very highly recommended magic kits for kids around (there are also a lot of terrible kits, so take your time in picking the right equipment). Here are some of the top-rated and best-reviewed sets that we could find:

  • Melissa & Doug Deluxe Magic Set (for ages eight and up) is an excellent choice if you are looking for some simple magic tricks for children to learn. Most of the tricks in this kit are made of wood, and there is a nice Egyptian theme to it. The instructions are also very cool for kids with a sort of aged, burned parchment effect to the paper, and they are clear enough for kids to be able to follow.  Most reviewers of this kit agreed that it was a high-quality product for an excellent price. The kit has ten magic tricks including Disappearing Ball, Magic Coin Box, Secret Silks, Great Escape, Magic Number Prediction, Money Maker, Egyptian Prediction, Vanishing Zone, Cylinder Squeeze and Vanishing Coin.
  • Melissa & Doug Discovery Magic Set is different from the Melissa and Doug Deluxe set in that it is for a slightly younger crowd (a lot of people recommend it for 4-5-year-olds) The tricks are straightforward and easy for very young children to perform. The kit itself is wooden and very well made. The set includes the following four tricks: “Sword in the stone” trick where the child uses a secret ring to get the sword out of the stone. In this trick, the child can change the color of a string from white to red by pulling it through a wooden box/gadget, an illusion box where items “disappear” when they are dropped inside, a trick with a box and a dice where the child can guess the side/color of the dice that an audience member has chosen.
  • POOF-Slinky 0C4769 Ideal 100-Trick Spectacular Magic Show Suitcase with Instructional DVD (for ages 7-12) is a bit different than the Melissa and Doug sets in that it has 100 magic tricks and props, so a lot is going on with this set. The quality won’t be as good as the Melissa and Doug sets, but if you are looking for quantity at a reasonable price, this is the set for you. This set includes a magic hat, a suitcase that doubles as a magician’s table, the “Secrets of 100 Magic Tricks” book, and an instructional DVD starring magician Ryan Oakes.

Individual Magic Tricks for Kids

If you aren’t quite ready to buy a whole set for a child, have a look at these simple tricks that are suitable for kids.

  • Pen Thru Dollar Magic Trick is a simple trick that, with a bit of practice, is a good starting one for kids. The point of this trick is a pen is put through a spectator’s dollar bill, without wrecking the bill.  Kids can ask the audience for a bill and then stick the pen straight through the middle of it with no damage done. The trick has instructions included and is easy enough for a kid who is just getting into magic.
  • Magic Makers Disappearing Dime and Penny Illusion Magic Trick is another easy to learn trick that is a good one for kids (although kids may need some help from an adult who knows a bit about coin tricks). This trick includes step-by-step instructions and a bang ring. It’s is a very highly rated trick for a reasonable price.

Tricks for Kids Videos and Websites

There are lots of resources to help kids learn magic tricks online. The best is the online videos that break down the tricks in an easy and straight forward way.

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  • Neo K12 has a great list of magic tricks videos that are suitable for kids.
  • Activity Village also has an excellent list of online magic trick videos for kids.
  • Kid Zone has an outstanding list of magic tricks for kids with instructions. It also has some helpful tips for kids to improve their magic skills.
  • Easy magic coin trick is a video tutorial of the setup and execution of a simple coin trick that is appropriate for kids.
  • Magic Tricks for Kids has some fun videos for kid’s magic tricks. Also, check out their main site.
  • Magic in Minutes is very well done online video tutorials on magic tricks that are suitable for kids.
  • The Society of Young Magicians is a part of the Society of American Magicians that offers a membership to youth between the ages of 7 and 17, and it includes a subscription to The Magic SYMbol online magazine. If children join, they have to take the Membership Pledge where they agree not to tell any of the secrets of magic to anyone (among other things), which would probably be cool for a kid.

We couldn’t find many apps with magic tricks that are specifically designed for kids. There are a few available, but the reviews for them aren’t great. However, there is a pretty big selection of magic trick apps that are designed for beginners that are good for kids as well (with a lot of practice and a bit of patience).

  • Magic Lesson is suitable for beginner performers with step-by-step guides that include photos and video instructions. It also has tips for improving performance.
  • Magic – Eye is a simple card trick kids can do on the phone. There is a review of this app by a kid who explains how the app works and reveals the trick here.
  • Invisible Deck is another easy(ish) trick that you can do on an iPhone that is okay for kids to try.
  • Magic 101  has tricks for the beginner and intermediate levels, you can start small and advance to more complex prestidigitations, with the option to purchase more tricks through in-app purchases. Each trick includes a step by step instruction and a performance by Angelo Oddo – professional magician, and a close-up video tutorial where Angelo will teach you the steps to perform each trick.
  • Magic Trick is a free simple card trick app.

DVDs

  • Learn Magic with Lyn: 11 Tricks for Kids (ages 6-12) don’t be put off by the sort of cheesy cover, because there are some excellent reviews for this DVD. Professional magician Lyn Dillies teaches kids illusions that can be achieved with a little bit of practice and minimal setup. This DVD has eleven easy tricks children can learn within minutes using ordinary, everyday household items. This DVD includes instructions for the illusions: Newspaper Ball, Magic Ribbon, Mindreading Crayons, Napkin Production, Dime Go, Ice Water, Tricky Lollipops, Cups and Balls, Eye on the Coin, Wonder Wand, and Ropes Thru Body.
  • Magic Tricks R4 Kids, Vol. 1  professional Las Vegas magicians Will Roya & Joan DuKore go through step by step 15 tricks that kids can do at home.  You can see a preview of this DVD here.

Books

  • Kids’ Magic Secrets: Simple Magic Tricks & Why They Work by Loris Bree and Marlin Breefor ages 9-12 (although you could probably go as young as 6) Using everyday items found in most homes, kids can improve their magic skills with this guide to performing magic tricks. In the activities detailed, items disappear, water refuses to leave a container, and magicians make partners disappear (and reappear). Each activity includes step-by-step directions and illustrations, followed by an explanation of how the trick works.
  • Easy-to-Do Magic Tricks for Children by Karl Fuvles (for ages 9-12) is an easy-to-follow guide that gives step-by-step instructions for performing 18 simple feats of prestidigitation.
  • Magic: The Complete Course by Joshua Jay isn’t written for kids, but it could be useful for older kids who are looking for an excellent resource to help them improve their skills. It combines expertise, photographs, and step-by-step directions showing how to perform 100 tricks. Each trick is broken down into the Effect, the Secret, the Setup, and the Performance, with lessons on what to say, how to direct the audience’s attention, where to keep your hands, and so on.
  • Kids Guide to Magic Tricks has instructions for kids on how to do: The Magic Shoelace, Cut and Restored Rope, Sticking a pencil through George Washington’s eye, Cut and restored newspaper, and a fantastic 4 number prediction.

 

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Teach Your Kids ESL English

There is certainly no shortage of material to help teach kids English as a second language.  There are so many resources that you can use, some parents and teachers might not know where to start. With that in mind, we have sorted through what we think are the best ESL DVDs, apps, books, websites and language learning systems for kids that help with the wonderful journey of learning a new language.

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The Best DVDs to Teach Kids ESL

DVDs are an easy way to get kids familiar with English. Of the DVDs that we checked out, our top picks for the best DVDs to help teach kids English at home are Little Pim: Volume One English/ESL and the LeapFrog: Learning DVD Set.

If you are looking for a DVD, an excellent place to start is with the Little Pim: English  DVDs. Little Pim has lots of videos to choose from for ages 0-5. You can buy them individually or in sets. Each DVD is thirty-five minutes long and includes seven episodes that combine an animated portion with Little Pim the Panda and a bit narrated by Little Pim that shows real children demonstrating the word or phrase that is being learned. This series is generally pretty good quality and fun for kids to watch.

If you are looking for something a little more advanced, you can’t go wrong with any of the LeapFrog letter or number videos. They are very popular with anyone teaching kids letters, words, numbers, etc. They are entertaining for kids and very educational. These are highly recommended for kids learning English.

Another good resource is the Sesame English: ESL for Children series of DVDs (if you can get your hands on it!). It seems to be discontinued, so check your local library or check if they are selling it here.  YouTube also has a few clips of the Sesame Street ESL series.

ESL Language Learning Programs and Websites for Kids

There are so many excellent websites with ESL resources for kids you won’t have any trouble finding something that will help you teach your kids English online:

  • Duolingo is one of the best resources for kids to learn English, and it is free, easy, and fun.
  • Mingoville is an online-based course featuring fun English games, grammar, songs, and more. You can try the site for free, and if your kids like it, then you can upgrade to a paid membership for $24 for three months or $48 for a year.
  • ESL Kids Lab has ESL teaching materials for kids from k to 12. It also has video lessons.
  • Starfall is a free website to teach children to read with phonics. For preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. It has phonics games and online interactive books
  • DinoLingo English for Kids – Learning English for Children DVD Set is a language learning program for kids that uses DVDs, books, CDs, flashcards, and online lessons.
  • English 4 Kids has ESL teaching materials, resources for children, parents, and teachers of English. It also has games and activities for ESL kids.
  • Learn English Kids has lots of free online games, songs, stories, and activities for children to have fun and learn English too.
  •  Anglomaniacy is a great site for kids who are learning English. Includes picture dictionaries, basic English vocabulary, grammar for kids, online word games, tests, etc.
  • ESL Kids is a wonderful free ESL website for kids. It has flashcards, handwriting worksheets, classroom games, and children’s song lyrics.

Free Online Games to Help Teach ESL

Best ESL Apps for Kids

There are lots of great apps to help teach kids English. Here is a small sample of some of the best:

  • Intro to Letters is a very highly rated app that covers the basic foundations of language, how to read, write and understand letters from a-z, lowercase letter symbols and their sounds (phonics) phonograms – writing and pronunciation capital letters – letter names, writing and pronunciation, and consonants and vowels.
  • Kids learn English with Busuu helps kids learn 150 words, taught across 30 learning units full of educational games. Each lesson follows a 5 step methodology to gradually help your child learn vocabulary, spelling, and phonetics.
  • Adventures for Kids helps kids develop an English vocabulary by following characters on adventures through space, the zoo, the farm, the city, etc.
  • Simplex Spelling Phonics 1  is a very highly rated app that teaches English spelling and reading skills by using a combination of phonics lessons, spelling/word patterns, and contextually relevant spelling rules.
  • Word BINGO  helps kids learn sight words (sight words are words that are recognized immediately (onsight) without phonetically decoding or sounding out parts).
  • Sight Words Hangman uses 300 sight words in a hangman game to help increase kids’ vocabulary, spelling, and reading levels.
  • SentenceBuilder is designed to help elementary-aged children learn how to build grammatically correct sentences.

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  • Flashcards for Kids has 1,500 picture flashcards to help boost kid’s English vocabulary.
  • Duolingo is a free language learning app. It’s designed for adults but can be good for kids as well.

ESL Books for Kids

  • Let’s Learn English Picture Dictionary (for ages 3-8) contains more than 1,550 commonly taught basic words that are displayed on pictures scenes such as home life, the classroom, city life, sports, the zoo, outer space, etc. This picture dictionary also includes an index and glossary of all the individually illustrated words.
  • ESL Activities and Mini-Books for Every Classroom is a quick and easy guide that is designed for teachers with kids who can’t speak English, but it can also be helpful for parents of ESL kids with tips and activities for kids in Grades 1-4.

ESL Songs for Kids

  • ESL Kids has over 40 popular children’s songs and nursery rhymes in this section, many of which can be found on YouTube if you don’t know the melody of need ideas for gestures.
  • Anglomaniacy has a list and some audio clips and lyrics of some of the most popular English songs for kids.

ESL Learning Toys for Kids

Here are some fun toys that we found that are helpful to young ESL learners.

  • ThinkFun Bingo is a fun game for younger players to practice their word recognition and spelling skills. Players slide the “Letter Getter” forward to reveal two letter tiles, and then use them to create three-letter words by filling in the blanks on their Word-Starter cards. The player who spells the greatest number of words wins.
  • Sentence Building helps develop early grammar and reading skills with sturdy, interlocking cards that cover parts of speech, capital letters, punctuation, building sentences, etc. Tailor activities to different learning levels with this set that includes grammatically color-coded cards (55 word, four punctuation, and 27 photo cards), game ideas, sample sentences, and teaching suggestions.
  • DK Games: Silly Sentences (for ages 4-7) is a game that has puzzle pieces for making sentences. The sentence structure is enforced by the way the puzzle pieces fit together. ESL teachers seem to like this game for their students, although there are lots of complaints that there aren’t enough verbs in it.
  • Zingo Sight Words uses the game of bingo to help kids learn to recognize sight words. Kids will learn to read common sight words.

Flashcards and Workbooks

  • First Words Flash Cards (Brighter Child Flash Cards)  is a set that features 54 cards that help reinforce phonics, letter recognition, and reading readiness skills with full-color illustrations. A special card also offers creative game ideas designed to reinforce learning.
  • Picture Words Flash Cards can help your child learn basic words. Each card presents a word, plus a colorful picture representing that word. There is also a Parent Card that suggests many games to help your child learn letters and words.
  • Trend Enterprises Sight Words Bingo Flash Cards( for ages 5-9) is a set that includes 36 playing cards, 264 playing chips, caller’s mat and cards, and a storage box. Kids will practice reading 46 words from common vocabulary lists
  • Cut & Paste Sight Words Sentences helps beginning readers master over 100 sight words using the unique, hands-on approach in this resource. Step-by-step directions tell how to use the sight words on each reproducible to teach an entire lesson, reinforcing sight word recognition, sentence structure, vocabulary development, and higher-level comprehension skills.

 

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Teach Your Kids Hindi – The Parents Guide

If you would like to teach your children how to speak Hindi, we have found lots of wonderful DVDs, apps, books, toys, worksheets, and much more that you can use to help your kids learn Hindi at home.

As you may or may not know, Hindi is a form of Hindustani. It is an official language of India, and the most common language spoken in most of Northern India, although obviously it is also spoken in many other parts of the world.  There are varying opinions on how hard it is to learn Hindi, so start when your kids are young and expose them to as much Hindi as you can and they will pick it up quickly.

Learn Hindi Child

The Best DVDs to Teach Kids Hindi

DVDs are an easy way to begin to introduce your kids to a new language. Here are some great DVDs that cover basic Hindi for kids:

  • Hindi for Kids DVD Set: Simple Words & Number and Colours  (ages 3+) +) is a 2 DVD collection that teaches Hindi in a fun and interactive way. Both ‘Simple Words’ and ‘Numbers and Colours’ use colorful animation, as well as songs, stories, and games to encourage and motivate children to learn. It is similar to the Baby Einstein videos.
  • Exploring Hindi – Kids Learn Hindi is another DVD that is along the same lines as Baby Einstein. Exploring Hindi introduces the basic vocabulary and sounds of Hindi through children, everyday objects, colors, and numbers.
  • Kids Learn Hindi with Bollywood Baby mixes dancing, colors, music, and introduces the native Indian language of Hindi with a Bollywood Theme.
  • Hindi Kids helps teach kids’ shapes, numbers, colors, directions, taste, common words associated with food and sports in Hindi.

The Best Hindi Language Learning Programs and Websites for Kids

  • Learning Hindi for Children DVD Set (5 DVDs)(ages 2-7) is a Hindi language learning set where cartoon dinosaur characters introduce the most common 200 words and phrases in Hindi. The Hindi learning DVD set includes 5 DVDs and 150 Hindi flash cards.
  • Hindi By Reena is a website dedicated to teaching kids Hindi. They have free worksheets and materials, as well as online courses, blog posts, and fun lists to help parents teach their children Hindi.
  • Akhlesh’s Homepage of Preschool Hindi is a wonderful resource for parents to help teach their kids Hindi. Topics include the alphabet, writing, pronunciation, grammar, poems, songs, etc.
  • Cheeni for Tots has lots of really good resources for parents who are teaching their kids Hindi at home.
  • Hindi Gym has free resources like ready-to-print materials to teach Hindi along with the products that they sell.
  • Galli Galli Sim Sim is a Hindi version of Sesame Street. It has games, videos, and rhymes
  • Indif is another great site that offers simple lessons on basic Hindi including the alphabet, nursery rhymes, learning charts, numbers, and coloring sheets.

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Free Online Games to Help Teach Hindi

Since kids love playing online games, we have included a few free educational games that can be helpful for kids who are learning Hindi

  • Duolingo is one of the best places to teach almost any language to kids online
  • Digital Dialects is a free site that has lots of online games to learn Hindi grammar, vocabulary, numbers, and the alphabet.
  •  Matrubhasha offers a couple of online games that cover beginning sounds and colors.

Best Hindi Apps for Kids

Another easy way to introduce a new language to kids is through apps. Here are some of the top reviewed apps that cover everything from the Hindi alphabet, Matra, to swar/vyanjan.

  • Hindi Kids Writing helps kids learn to trace on Hindi swar, Matra, vayanjan, words, akshar gyan. This App has three modes: Writing Practice, Listening Practice, and Exercise. Writing Practice lets you study each letter at a time, Listening Practice gives you for each (audible) letter its pronunciation, Exercise gives you a word which you are to write.
  • The Kids school (Hindi)  has categories like directions, birds, days and months, and animals. There are over a hundred words to teach your kids.
  • Trace Hindi Alphabets Kids Activity helps kids write Hindi and English letters. You can trace any letter in Vowels (Swar), Consonants (Vyanjan) in Hindi alphabet and Upper, lowercase letters in the English alphabet.
  • Kids Hindi Words has over 400 Hindi Flashcards containing commonly used Hindi words (colors, numbers, food drink, and animals, etc.)

Hindi Learning Books for Kids

If you have come across any products or learning tools that you have found useful in teaching your own kids Hindi, please let us know by leaving a comment. We would love to share it with other parents.

 

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photo credit: Philippe Put via photopin cc

Teach Your Kids Arabic – The Parents Guide

It is a tremendous gift to a child to teach them a new language. It can help them connect with family and their heritage, and it can also open up incredible job opportunities when they are older.

Teaching a child something new isn’t always the easiest thing, but luckily if you are looking to teach your child Arabic, there is a large selection of products that parents can use at home that can make language learning much more accessible. So to help keep parents motivated in this rewarding task, we have found the best DVDs, websites, free online games, apps, books, worksheets, and toys that will help your kids learn to speak Arabic (in a fun way).

Arabic Lessons for children

The Best DVDs to Teach Kids Arabic

Luckily there are several DVDs available to help kids learn. Here are some of the most popular:

The Best Arabic Language Learning Programs and Websites for Kids

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  • Dino Lingo is a language learning program for kids that uses DVDs, books, CDs, flashcards, and online lessons.
  • Languagenut is primarily designed for schools, but you can get a paid home subscription for $30 a year. It has 24 units, with songs, stories, and games.
  • Araboh is a fantastic resource for parents and kids with lots of information to help teach and learn at home.
  • Bareem is the first pre-school Arabic television for children between the age of 3 and 6 years old, offering a range of programs specifically tailored for them.
  • I Like Arabic is a free online site to help people learn the language. They have online lessons and games.
  • Omar & Mariam have interactive online books and quizzes.

Free Online Games

  • Digital Dialects has some basic games to help kids learn numbers, animals, and colors.
  • Learning Games a great list of learning games from Yemen Links.
  • Alef-Ba-Ta helps teach the language to children using educational games.

Best Apps

Apps are an easy way to help reinforce a new language with young children in a fun way. There are lots of great apps that parents can choose from here are a few to have a look at:

  • Learn Arabic for Kids has over Flashcards (over 400) that show the most commonly used words in topics like colors, numbers, food, drink, and animals.
  • Arabic for Kids has hundreds of language vocabulary and children’s songs to help teach children the language and pre-school fundamentals.
  • ABC Arabic for kids 2 Free teaches kids the language using a letters game, a counting game, and animal name game.
  • Arabic Baby Flash Cards has over 450 high-quality images in categories, including food items, animals, transportation, numbers, colors & shapes, clothing, household items, etc.
  • Iqraa Ma’a Momo helps teach your kids (Age 3-8 years old)  spelling. It includes 75 different words, in three categories: things, food, and animals.

If you have any resources that you have used to teach your children and would like to share with other parents, please let us know in the comments below.

 

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Teach Your Kids to Make Apps (Sort of)

You have probably seen lots of news stories about kids who are as young as seven developing iPhone and Android apps, and maybe you started wondering, “Why isn’t my kid doing that”?  Unfortunately, it’s not necessarily an easy thing to make an app.

While it is super awesome if kids are interested in actually creating technology and not just playing with it, before we get going we’d like to give a little warning about how much work it actually takes to make an app. If you look closely at the stories of kids who are developing games and applications there is usually a programmer parent or at minimum, a parent who is involved in IT in some way. The kids who are doing this are generally kids who have been introduced to computer programming at an early age; so while, yes, it is possible for kids to make apps, in all likelihood if your kids are super keen to create their own programs and games they will need someone (parent, teacher, relative) who can help them with some of the more difficult parts of creating something (especially if they want to do it from scratch or are using a third-party platform).

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Anyway, since there are kids out there who have done it, we thought we’d have a bit of a look to see what resources are out there that can give children some guidance.

Where to Start

There are three ways to go here, depending on what your kids know and what kind of application they are trying to create:

  1. If your kids have no computer programming knowledge and have no interest in trying to learn any programming, but they still want to make something cool, then they should probably start off with an app creation tool.
  2. If your kids know some programming and are motivated and open to learning more, then they would most likely be best trying a third-party platform.
  3. If your kids are really good programmers, super motivated to learn new stuff and are not afraid of a challenge, then they just might be able to create something from scratch.

Let’s start with the easy stuff first.

How Kids Can Make an App With Little or no Programming Knowledge

If your kids don’t want to learn to program, then they are going to need to find an app creation tool (aka app creator, app maker, app builder, or brochureware) that can help them make the type of product that they want. An app creation tool is basically a program or a type of software that allows non-programmers to easily create software with programming features. They are usually quite easy to use, and you can get something created quickly.

Some of the things to keep in mind if your kids are using an app creation tool: they won’t have the kind of control over the app that they would if they were building from scratch, they won’t be able to produce complex features or design, and the app may not run as quickly or as smoothly on slower devices or older phones.

There are lots of authoring tools to choose from (many more not included in this list). The following all claim to allow their users to create apps without writing any code.

  • Game Salad is an app creator that lets non-programmers develop games for iPhone and Android devices using drag and drop features.
  • AppMakr is a DIY platform to create content-based apps for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone with no programming.
  • Gamemaker allows you to create many types of computer games without the need to write a single line of code. It allows users to make the game in Gamemaker and then redistribute on multiple platforms including iOS and Android.
  • Stencyl helps you create iOS and Flash 2D games quickly with or without coding.
  • Construct2  allows users to build 2D games without any coding that is then exported or converted to iOS or Android.
  • App Inventor for Android  helps kids or adults create mobile applications for Android-powered devices without writing any code.
  • Buzztouch allows anyone to create an iPhone app in a few minutes without special knowledge or software. These are mostly aimed at small business owners, but if kids want to create a non-game based application, they can give it a try.
  • iBuildApp is a site that lets you make iPhone, iPad, Android, or HTML5 mobile apps for free.

Resources:

Search on YouTube for tutorials for the app creation tool your kids might want to use. There are lots of video resources for each of the sites.

If your kids are non-programmers but are interested in learning a bit more about the whole mobile applications process, check out Book 1: Diving In – iOS App Development for Non-Programmers Series.

How to Teach Kids who have Some Programming Skills to Build Apps

If your kids have a fair amount of programming knowledge but aren’t hard-core programmers,  there are several third-party platforms or frameworks that are an excellent option for kids to try out if they are trying to create something new. Most of the kids who have created apps have used these platforms in one way or another. Your kids won’t have the kind of control that they would if they were building from scratch, but realistically they are the best option for kids.

By using a third party platform, kids can create their mobile applications in a relatively easy programming language to learn or one they already know (HTML, JavaScript). Then the code is deployed and adapted to run on iOS and Android.

Some of the Third Party Platforms to consider:

  • Phonegap lets its users program in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that can then be converted to Android and iOS using a JavaScript API. This is ideal for kids who may have strong skills in web development and who want to begin to move into mobile development.
  • Corona SDK is a mobile 2d game development framework that uses Lua as its programming language. Lua is considered by many programmers to be an easy programming language to learn and in some cases ideal for kids to use. Here is a great list of tutorials on how to use Corona.
  • Unity 3d helps its users create interactive 3D games that can be converted to different platforms. Unity 3D would be a good choice for a kid who is very advanced with programming but not wanting to build a game from scratch. Have a look at tutorials to help get started.

Resources

There are a number of really good online tutorials that can be helpful if kids are looking to improve their coding skills. Try Code Academy, or Code School HTML/CSS.

How to Help Kids Make an iOS app From Scratch

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We would not recommend kids actually trying to create a mobile application from scratch since it is pretty hard for even seasoned programmers, but who knows what some kids might be able to accomplish, so we thought why not put in some info just in case.

There isn’t much point in us trying to explain exactly how to make an app from scratch since it is such a big undertaking. There are lots of sites that can give you much better information on that than we can. Instead, here are some things to consider if your kids really want to develop something from scratch:

  • They need to have a good understanding of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP); knowledge of a programming language like Java or C++ is highly recommended.
  • They will need a Mac computer.
  • They will have to pay to join Apple’s iOS developer program before you can submit an app to the App Store.
  • They will need to download XCode Apple’s Software Development Kit (this is free).
  • They will need to learn the Cocoa framework, which is an Apple-specific development environment.
  • They will need to learn Objective C

Resources

Learning to use xCode, Cocoa, and Objective C is not easy,  luckily there are a lot of resources kids can reference to try and get going.

How Kids Can Make an Android App from Scratch

Points to keep in mind before beginning to program for Android devices:

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  • As with IOS programming, your child or student should have a strong programming background; knowledge of a programming language such as C++, Java, or PHP is highly recommended.
  • They can use a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer.
  • They will need to download the Android software development kit (free).
  • They will need to learn Java.

Resources

Hopefully, if your kids are curious about making apps, you were able to find something here. If you have any thoughts on kids doing app development or any tips for kids, please leave a comment.

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