Best Fun, Simple, and Easy Coding Projects for Kids and Beginners

When Parents think of certain activities to engage their children with in order to have fun, what comes to their mind almost immediately are things like sports(football, basketball, tennis, etc.), dance, theater arts, and video games.

These are the events best known to them as they are the popular things being done.

However, affording them some coding projects during a BootCamp can engage them in a fun way. It can even go as far as improving their IQ(Intelligence Quotient) faster.

During some of our coding and robotics BootCamp, we ensure that kids are following the coding projects in a fun and easy way. We create some groups and give them different tasks.

As they do those tasks together, their communication skills are improving and they engage with others are colleagues in a fun way. Most times, they may not get it at the first trial, but with our certified instructors on the ground to guide them,

As a result, we will be providing you with the best fun and easy coding projects for kids. Get your kids around as we learn together. This resource also takes care of coding projects for beginners

But, before we dive into that, let us see some basics of coding or programming.

What is Coding?

The definition of coding is the process of creating instructions for computers using programming languages. Coding is used to program the websites, apps, and other technologies we interact with every day.

Computer coding is the use of computer programming languages to give computers and machines a set of instructions on what actions to perform.

Coding is how humans communicate with machines. It’s what allows us to create computer software like programs, operating systems, and mobile applications.

In Simpler friendly terms for Kids, coding is using a set of instructions to communicate with computers.

There are different coding languages and they all have different rules and uses, but they all give computers instructions on how to do specific tasks because that is the only language the computer can understand. 

Some Major Benefits of Coding

• Learning to code nurtures your math and problem-solving abilities.
• Learning to code in itself is a challenging endeavor that will test your grit and determination.
• Coding is an in-demand skill that will open many professional doors and help you achieve job security.
• Employers highly value coding skills and are willing to pay top dollar for employees who know Java, JavaScript, Python, and other popular languages.

Fun and Easy Coding Projects for Kids

• How to Make a Sprite Jump in Scratch

This article will teach beginner Scratchers how to make sprites jump in Scratch! The code we show below is the easiest way to make sprites jump and look nice while jumping.

What is Jumping?

In real life, jumping is the act of using your legs and feet to propel yourself into the air. That probably isn’t news to anyone, though! While everyone knows how to jump, it’s probably not something that you do very frequently.

Aside from playing sports or exercising, we can go almost our entire lives without ever needing to jump. However, in the world of video games, jumping is much more important.

This useful mechanic improves the quality of video games in many different ways. Adding the ability to jump into your game will make your game:

• More interactive
• More complex
• More challenging
• More fun to play

Adding jumping into games also allows for the creation of obstacles and other pitfalls that the player has to jump to avoid. These new mechanics in turn make your game even more fun and challenging! Many extremely popular games have utilized jumping to do exactly that.

How to Make a Simple Jump Mechanic

We can think of jumping as another form of movement in Scratch, just like moving left and right when the left and right arrow keys are pressed. Games usually use the “up” or “spacebar” keys to jump. For our project, we will say that our character will jump when the player presses “spacebar.”

Here’s the secret to programming a jump:

• When our character jumps, he starts by moving up. However high he jumps, he must always fall back down the same amount.

This is pretty intuitive if you think about it — if you jump 3 feet into the air, you’re always going to fall down 3 feet and land on the ground. This means that whenever we tell our sprite to move up, we must then tell it to move down by the same amount.

We’ll be using a new block to tell our character to move up/down vertically. This is the change y block. Whenever it runs, it tells our character to change its Y position by the specified amount.

If you recall, a sprite’s Y position determines its vertical position on the screen. A Y coordinate is usually paired with an X coordinate (that determines horizontal position) in order to describe exactly where a sprite is on our screen.

This is the simplest possible way to make sprites jump on demand shown below. It’s pretty short, with only 3 code blocks running when the spacebar key is pressed.

Scratch Ninja 1

A Bat and A Chick Sprite is being chosen here.

Instructions

• 1. Control the bat with arrow keys – “left arrow” key to turn anti-clockwise, and “right arrow” key to turn clockwise to help the bat avoid bumping into the chick
• 2. Press “space” key to switch backdrops
• 3. When the bat touches the chick, have “uh oh” in speech bubble and say “uh oh!”
• 4. When the chick touches the bat, say “uh oh!” (no speech bubble)

The Code and Image

Fig: Code required for the scratch Ninja

Fig: Stage area display expected

Dino Dance

Dino in this case is a sprite and we are going to make it dance when an instrument is clicked. To do that follow the codes in the image below to create a beautiful and dancing Dino. 

Step 1: Choose Dinosaur as your sprite

Step 2: Choose a stage backdrop

Step 3: Choose a Drum kit, drum cymbal, and electric guitar sprites so they all look arranged in the stage area like the image below

Step 4: Now your Codes

Code for Drum Kit and Code for Drum Cymbals

Program for Electric Guitar

Code to make the Dinosaur Dance

End.

Making a Video Game

Create a Sprite

To get started, we will need to create a “Sprite” for our main character. In Scratch projects, characters and objects are represented by Sprites.

These sprites are images and appear in the main area where your game takes place (in the top right, called the Stage). Sprites can move around and execute the code that we give them, which allows us to create some truly awesome projects!

To choose a different sprite, click on this circle button in the bottom right part of your Scratch screen.

For our game, we will use a mermaid as our first sprite. This is one of the default sprites in the menu, so anyone that wants to can follow along!

Scratch has a ton of pre-created sprites you can choose from! For this game, we’re choosing the mermaid sprite from the fantasy category.

After creating a sprite, you should see it in the center of the Stage. The cat will be there as well — unless you want him in your game too, you can delete him if you right-click the trash can icon on his sprite.

Program your Character

Now that we’ve created a new sprite, it’s time to bring it to life! Since this sprite is going to be the main character of our game, let’s write code to let the player control it.

The code you write on a controllable sprite will allow the sprite to move when the player presses buttons. If you’re making a question game, the code you write can ask the user questions instead. In general, the code on your main sprite should implement the “Control” section of your plan.

For our game, we want our mermaid to be able to move around. She will move left/right / up / down when we press the left/right / up / down arrow keys.

Pick out a backdrop

Before moving on to add an objective, let’s first solidify our theme by adding a backdrop. While backdrops are not necessary to complete a game, they certainly add quite a bit of character.

You could make a working game without them, but then your game would simply take place on a white screen! Choosing a fun backdrop helps communicate the theme of your game, and makes your game more engaging and immersive.

Our mermaid is now in our underwater backdrop (we used the backdrop titled “Underwater 2”)!

 Add an Objective

Now, let’s add an objective to our game. To do this, we can create a new sprite that will interact with our main character.

You should select your objective’s sprite based on the kind of game you want to make. For example, a Question game could have a wise Sphinx who asks questions to the player. A dodging game could have a spooky ghost that chases the player around!

For our collecting game, the mermaid will need to collect pearls. When she collects a pearl, another one will appear in a random spot! Our score will increase by one for every pearl we collect.

Write the code for your objective

Whenever the mermaid touches a pearl, we want another to appear in a random position on the screen. This can be accomplished easily by using the blue go-to random position block.

Here is the simple code to make this happen:

• When you click the green flag, the game begins.
• After the green flag is clicked, the pearl will check to see if it is touching the mermaid.
• If it is, then it will go to a random position.
• Steps 2 and 3 will repeat forever.

The forever block on the outside is what is known as a loop. This loop repeatedly runs any code that you put inside of it until the game stops.

Coding Projects for Resume

Below are 8 ideal coding projects for your resume.

1. A website. Creating a website would be a great project if you’re interested in web development.
2. A video game
3. A mobile application
4. A data analysis model or data forecasting model
5. A chatbot
6. An API.
7. An AI-powered software
8. A SaaS

Conclusion

Coding projects are one that needs to engage any programmer or coder. Be it, kids or beginners, you are sure to get a good project for your coding journey here.

In addition to coding projects for kids, we listed some coding projects for your resume. And this article analyzes how you can get your coding projects fun, simple, or easy.

Finally, coding should be taught to a 5-year-old child or above. So as to build a strong professional career for the future.

You can get started with our program here.

Frequently Asked Questions

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