Coding can be taught in many different ways nowadays, many of which are a far cry from the olden days of just bending over a software development textbook and tapping out code on a black screen. Instead, coding today is best taught in game-like environment apps that are not only fun and engaging, but are an excellent way to visualize the basic principles of coding in real time.

Such coding game online platforms are especially great for teaching kids, as coding has indeed become a skill that’s best to be taught as early in life as possible. That’s both because of how useful of a life skill it is and because of how beneficial the process of learning to code is for kids’ cognitive development as a whole.

So, if you want to help your child learn to code or if you yourself are looking to dip your toe in this activity, what are some of the best online platforms out there to help you learn coding in a game-like environment? Here are our 4 suggestions.

1. CodeMonkey

If you are looking for something suitable for kids in the K-8 age range, probably the best tool for the job is CodeMonkey.com. In a sea of coding game site and apps for kids, CodeMonkey stands out as one of the most innovative, fun, and effective tools out there, while also being quite affordable.

The site can be used both for solo learning and with a tutor’s assistance. It also has a wide variety of courses that are broken down by difficulty levels and by age sub-groups, with some designed for the youngest pupils out there and others for more advanced students. As such, CodeMonkey can be used to assist a child’s coding education for years, and it can help someone progress from the very basics of learning coding through games to being ready for proper software education in high school and beyond.

The coding languages this site focuses on are Python and CoffeeScript, with the latter being a beginner-friendly version of JavaScript. This makes it particularly useful for getting kids ready for two of the most popular and useful programming languages while enjoying learning through fun puzzle games with child-friendly art and graphics.

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2. Scratch

Another platform that focuses on coding for kids, Scratch, is also a good introduction to coding for the youngest learners. It showcases most coding elements as colorful and kid-friendly “building blocks” that children can control and navigate to get them to snap together. This is a cool way to visualize how coding works and help children understand the basic principles of programming.

Furthermore, Scratch is easy to download and can be used offline too, which is great for people living in remote locations where internet access isn’t all that reliable. Unlike CodeMonkey, which teaches languages that are useful later on, Scratch doesn’t focus so much on helping learners progress to more advanced courses. Instead, it’s purely an introductory platform to help kids begin to understand the basics of coding.

3. Swift Playgrounds

A platform intended for use on iOS and Macs, Swift Playgrounds focuses on teaching the Swift programming language only. This is the language used to develop iOS apps, but the platform itself is intended for teaching kids the basics and as an introduction to coding. Swift Playgrounds includes various challenges and tasks of various difficulty levels, all of which are designed in engaging and fun game-like courses. The graphics are colorful, and the interface is quite intuitive, making it easy to use for both solo learners and those with a tutor.

4. Blockly

Similar to Scratch, Blockly is a very child-friendly online platform that aims to teach kids the very basics of coding. Essentially, Blockly works as an open-source library made out of “blocks.” These blocks can be interacted with, they can be pushed, dragged, dropped, and arranged in various ways, similar to constructor bricks. Doing so is designed to showcase the basic principles of coding, however, as adding more blocks adds information to the given chain, the child is playing with. This demonstrates how computer codes are actually generated and illustrates the principles behind coding languages and how you can build code with them.

Blockly also then shows users how they have actually generated actual code while arranging the platform’s components, and also shows how these blocks can be converted into programming languages, such as JavaScript, Python, and others. So, while Blockly doesn’t offer a direct transition from its introduction into coding to actual programming tasks, it is a great tool for young children to both have fun and begin to understand how coding works and why it actually isn’t as complicated as people often make it out to be, at least not on principle.