The Lemon Fool

We've never pushed our daughter in anything she does.

We offered encouragement, advice and support. She gets all that and more. She's also allowed to make her own mistakes. Small ones mind. She's learning to reflect on her decisions, to discuss them and gather her thoughts ahead of a final decision. She's also aware that she can correct a decision if she feels she's got something wrong.

I'd like if I may to share something with you which has absolutely assured me that she has digested much.

Last Saturday it was her birthday. It was mine too. She bought me a very strange present. I have extremely greasy skin especially on my face. She bought me a facial wash and a moisturiser and a balm to use after shaving. I use an electric razor. Tonight I had a shave. Then I washed my face with the facial wash and then I used the moisturiser.

And heck does my face feel good. I never got to using the balm.

She's done her homework on this. And I am a born again moisturiser.

She's been taught to try something and if it doesn't work try something else until the result is what's needed. She can be relentless.

She wants to teach herself python. And I haven't got a clue how to support her. I don't want to buy her a book and throw it at her and I don't want to fall short when supporting her.

Can anyone point me in the right direction please?

Thank you in advance

AiY

You could get a raspberry pi and start off with scratch then move onto python. But I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me will come along soon.

There's probably more sources but this might help. It's free
https://www.futurelearn.com/programs/st ... ith-python or
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/programming-101
and more
https://www.futurelearn.com/search?q=python

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:She wants to teach herself python. And I haven't got a clue how to support her. I don't want to buy her a book and throw it at her and I don't want to fall short when supporting her.

The first big question is: Why does she want to teach herself Python?
- if you know what she wants to get out of it you can help her get there

or looking at it from another way one of the best ways to learn python is by using python and the best way to start on that is to have something that you want to do with it

A good (and free if you read it online under the CreativeCommons license) is https://automatetheboringstuff.com/ to get an idea of the sort of thing you can do (though very tailored to the tasks a computer user might be using in general)
- but it eventually covers things like website scraping which can be useful quickly
- the author has other books licensed similarly that deal with variations on the theme of Python

Raspberry Pi's as mentioned before can be a good way of getting hardware that can allow you access to the real world possibilities - you can control the pins (and hence external hardware) easily from python
- but they can also add a bit of "getting to grips with a bit of linux" into the mix - which may or may not be a good thing

Minecraft is a popular route in to python for kids: https://education.minecraft.net/lessons/python-101-lesson-1

Python has its quirks but for somethings it works better(1) than anything else

Have fun
- sd

1: "better" as in "getting what you want done in the shortest time from idea to completion"

Hi Aiy,
as others have mentioned a raspberry pi is a good way to get into using python, as well as programming minecraft, there is sonic pi a live coding music system.
Even if raspberry pi's hold no interest for her, the raspberrypi.org is a great site for resources - there's also a magazine called The Magpi, which goes back a few years now - and all issues can be downloaded for free as PDFs, these contain many Python Tutorials and often run various series that build on experience over time.
On-line you can find many introductory python courses for free.
Project Euler - a vast number of problems that are designed to be solved by writing a computer program, these start simple and get much harder building on what you have learnt already - also you can look on the web to find the solution if you get stuck.

Good luck
Paul

I'd second the arguments for a pi, and if you are just using what you need Linux is easy. I'd also second the idea of a Mooc (free online course) that you could possibly do together.

However I'm also a fan of books. I found this one doing a search for "Hunt the Wumpas python".
https://livebook.manning.com/book/hello ... chapter-2/

I can't comment about the relative quality of the book against others and am not associated with it at all.

As I said I did a search for "hunt the Wumpas". Thats a text based adventure game from the dawn of computers. The point is that such text based games can be programed on just about anything and run with the most basic of I/O. After all when first thought of it used a teleprinter for input and output. No need to worry about buying hardware or learning to use linux.

Want to go a bit further? Well just about everyone has a mobile phone.
https://opensource.com/article/20/8/pyt ... oid-mobile
She can show her friends the game she wrote.

Thank you for all the replies. As usual the amount of information forthcoming is amazing and I'm genuinely grateful.

AiY

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:We've never pushed our daughter in anything she does.

We offered encouragement, advice and support. She gets all that and more. She's also allowed to make her own mistakes. Small ones mind. She's learning to reflect on her decisions, to discuss them and gather her thoughts ahead of a final decision. She's also aware that she can correct a decision if she feels she's got something wrong.

(snip}

This popped up recently on another forum where I lurk
https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/learning_python-735044
The replies are pitched at a slightly higher level then beginner level you may be wanting but there is usually some good advice on said forum, and there are some good resources posted on the above thread.

If you haven't come across Udemy (https://www.udemy.com/) they are well worth a look.
They are effectively a shop for training courses and usually have a number available for free. All you need is an account.

As of today they have they following Python courses available at no cost

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Once you have "bought" a course it does not expire and can be accessed at any point in the future.

I am not sure as to their application for children but definitely worth checking

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We've ordered a Raspberry Pi. Got all the bits that go with it as I wasn't sure what it's all about. 4GB Ram, 64GB SD Card, cooling fan, cables, housing, heat sinks, USB card reader. A starters kit - whatever that means

Fairly sure I'll be back for more guidance. Thank you all

AiY

You don't say how old your daughter is (or I missed it). My small person is 10, and started learning Scratch at school. I had tried learning with her the previous summer, but books are out of the question, as are suggestions from Mummy. Anyway, fast forward a couple of years, and she is self-teaching from YouTube tutorials (she coded a Keepy Uppy game with a Minecraft Wither, using the webcam and video-sensing to detect when you bounced the Wither up). As I said, she is 10, and almost all learning comes from YouTube (school is only for learning stupid boring stuff...).

If your daughter is 10, YouTube is probably the way forwards. I'd suggest your daughter gets herself started and then asks YouTube for help when she gets stuck. She will probably find something that is whatever level she is at, and they will have other videos aimed at the same level but in different topics. Then as your daughter progresses, she can search more widely on YouTube for different answers to different questions.

If she's closer to my age (erm, my daughter is 10), Dummies Guide and SAMS Teach Yourself books have been pretty good, although I haven't tried Python from either of those. Other books of theirs have been useful to me.

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:She can be relentless.

She wants to teach herself python. And I haven't got a clue how to support her. I don't want to buy her a book and throw it at her and I don't want to fall short when supporting her.

I'm told by my 13 year old that YouTube - of course - and Thonny (https://thonny.org/) (free) are good places to start. Scratch is a good starting point also.

Apropos of nothing he also casually mentioned he's just written "a bot in Python to bantz with his mates on Discord".

No, I have no idea whatsover what that means either.

When I explain that back in the day when I was 13 it used to take me 40 minutes to load Elite from something called a cassette player I get looked at as if I have some unpleasant disease. Ho hum.