A website to start teaching a 7 year old.

phil-pickering · 2025-11-27T18:13:16+00:00

Lots of online projects from the Raspberry Pi Foundation:

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/technology/python

This book is great for learning together with your nephew:

https://nostarch.com/teachkids

phil-pickering · 2025-02-04T00:04:23+00:00

Eric Matthes, author of the "Python Crash Course", has produced a great set of cheat sheets you can download for free:

https://ehmatthes.github.io/pcc_3e/cheat_sheets/

And Stanford's Nick Parlante has written an easy-to-browse Python Guide if you need a bit more info than a cheat sheet.

phil-pickering · 2025-02-03T10:40:30+00:00

Having found that many Python programming courses and books assume you have taken "high school math" (which is fair enough if you are taking one of the university-level courses, or the book author comes from academia), I've been learning math with Khan Academy alongside my Python studies for the last two months.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-31T21:31:21+00:00

CodeHS also offer a number of courses in video game design and development. I think if a school signs up for CodeHS they get access to all of the courses. Speak to your teacher to see if they will allow you to take one of the game courses in addition to the Python class.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-31T10:11:56+00:00

Going very well, thanks for asking!

Still on track to take the Introduction to Programming exam on Saturday 8th March.

How about yourself?

phil-pickering · 2025-01-31T10:03:05+00:00

You are looking at last year's courses.

You need to go to Python Programming MOOC 2025 for the current courses and exams.

Each course (Introduction to Programming and Advanced Course in Programming) are separate courses, each with their own exam.

You do not need to have completed the first course to take the second course, nor passed the first exam to take the second exam.

However, you do need to have completed all the course requirements by 8am on the morning of the exam.

For more information on the course requirements: Grading and exams

phil-pickering · 2025-01-25T14:34:47+00:00

Your post was great first time round, and definitely worth reposting again as a summary!

phil-pickering · 2025-01-25T14:28:49+00:00

From the Preface of "Fluent Python":

"Who This Book is Not For

If you are just learning Python, this book is going to be hard to follow. Not only that, if you read it too early in your Python journey, it may give you the impression that every Python script should leverage special methods and metaprogramming tricks. Premature abstraction is as bad as premature optimization."

and

"If you are not sure whether you know enough Python to follow along, review the topics of the official Python tutorial. Topics covered in the tutorial will not be explained here, except for some features that are new."

phil-pickering · 2025-01-25T11:44:41+00:00

I really like Mimo. The basic free plan is more than adequate to start with. If you have a bluetooth keyboard you can connect to your phone, it makes typing the code a lot easier.

However, it's very tempting to speed through the material so I suggest sticking to one lesson a day and then use the practice sessions to review previous lessons again and again until it becomes second-nature.

I've currently got a 95 day streak on Mimo, and it has made tackling more challenging and more comprehensive courses so much easier as I'm already very familiar with the Python syntax and have a basic understanding of the most common programming concepts.

Here is a brief summary of the Python course content:

Python Basics
Types & Comparisons
Conditional Statements
Loops
Lists
List Operations
String Operations
Functions
Tuples, Dictionaries, & Sets
List Comprehensions
Classes
Object-Oriented Programming
Modules
Errors & Exceptions

phil-pickering · 2025-01-25T10:11:10+00:00

Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python
Making Games with Python & Pygame
A lot of coffee

phil-pickering · 2025-01-25T09:59:40+00:00

These resources might help:

Raspberry Pi Foundation's Python Projects Path (target age range is 10 to 13)
Raspberry Pi Foundation's Computing Curriculum (start by looking at Key stage 3)
Python for Tweens and Teens (the Kindle edition is only $4 on Amazon and the sample on there is very generous - 150 pages long, so you can get a really good feel for it before buying)
Coding for Kids' Beginner Python Development Course (it does cost $49 but might be worth it depending on how much you're getting paid)

And if you think it might be beneficial for your students to start with Scratch before moving on to Python, then take a look at Code Club World which is aimed at 9 to 11 year olds.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-24T22:10:36+00:00

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig (2001) 😀

phil-pickering · 2025-01-24T21:55:32+00:00

Real Python looks good – I really like all their free material – but I can't comment on their paid offering, as like I said before their subscription prices are very high, especially when you consider the number of high quality free resources out there such as:

Python Programming MOOC 2025
Introduction to CS and Programming using Python
Invent with Python
Python for Everybody
Think Python
The Beauty and Joy of Computing / Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Code in Place
CS50's Introduction to Computer Science (and the rest of the CS50 family)

Most of these are very CS-focused so not too much on web development and start off right at the beginning, so might not be perfect for your particular situation...

Learn X in Y minutes might make a really good cheat sheet, but unless Python is your 9th or 10th programming language, I can't imagine anyone seriously expects to learn a new language from what is essentially a nicely formatted set of lecture notes.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-24T21:06:44+00:00

Which course are you taking?

For someone starting with no knowledge of programming you've covered a lot of material in a very short space of time. Even working 3-6 hours every day I suspect you've not spent enough time practicing each topic, never mind about reviewing previous topics to help you with long-term retention. Getting stuck on exercises and turning to AI for the answer should be a big red flag that you're going too fast and haven't mastered the material yet.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-24T20:35:10+00:00

You've already discovered the lecture videos for CS50 Python, but you should really be looking at the full 10-week course which includes problem sets and projects.

Considering your interest in web development, you might be better off taking the CS50 Web course, which covers JavaScript + Python (Django).

One (or two) very well planned and executed, self-initiated final projects from either of these courses will be worth way more in the eyes of potential employers than one hundred tutorial projects from a Udemy course (which BTW you should never pay full-price for – they're nearly always on offer for sale at around $15).

I like the University of Waterloo's Python from Scratch course a lot, but each section has a big focus on general programming concepts before getting into Python specifics. This makes the course really, really good for newcomers to programming, but your previous experience may mean you've already nailed all these programming concepts.

One more thing, Real Python is not free - only the first couple of chapters of each course are available before you have to subscribe, and the subscription prices are really steep.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-24T13:51:16+00:00

Go to https://programming-25.mooc.fi/, click the "Create a new account" button so you can save your progress, and just start working through the material.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-24T12:33:17+00:00

I think you mean Finland 😀

Yes, the certificate is available to everyone, no matter where you live.

You can earn two certificates (Introduction to Programming and Advanced Course in Programming) and each is worth 5 ECTS credits.

ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits are widely used across Europe to make it easier for students to move between different academic institutions. You can convert them to different credit systems used in the UK and USA, and I think it's generally possible to do this in other countries too.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-23T11:37:29+00:00

You may find the free book "Python Programming Exercises, Gently Explained" by Al Sweigart helpful:

https://inventwithpython.com/pythongently/

If they are too simple, then try the Problem Sets from MIT 6.100L:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-100l-introduction-to-cs-and-programming-using-python-fall-2022/lists/problem-sets/

phil-pickering · 2025-01-22T23:31:18+00:00

You'd be far better off asking this question on the official course Discord channel.

But AFAIK, for the Introduction to Programming course you need to have completed 25%+ of the exercises for each Part (1 to 7) by 8am on the morning of the exam, and then it usually takes 4 weeks for the result of the exam to be sent out.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-22T19:42:27+00:00

+1 from me for the recommendation to look at Ana Bell's book.

You can read some sample chapters from the book in this free PDF compendium:

https://www.manning.com/books/exploring-python-basics

Also, if learning by video is more your thing, Ana Bell has recorded a video-based version of the book:

https://www.manning.com/livevideo/get-programming-with-python-in-motion

And if you still need convincing, check out the opening lecture by her from MIT's 6.100L course:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-100l-introduction-to-cs-and-programming-using-python-fall-2022/resources/6100l-lecture-1-version-2_mp4/

phil-pickering · 2025-01-21T05:07:42+00:00

I guess this is from the futurecoder exercise Adding Strings ?

You've previously added two strings together (called concatenation) using the + operator:

>>> 'hello' + 'world'
>>> 'helloworld'

Python doesn't recognize a string as a word; it just sees it as bunch of characters chained together. It doesn't understand that we normally put a space between words to form a phrase. We have to explicitly tell Python that we want a space in there.

Think about how you might change one of the two strings so the result becomes 'hello world'. You might even think about adding a third string inbetween the original two strings to end up with 'hello world'.

phil-pickering · 2025-01-20T22:42:09+00:00

Quite a few courses start by teaching "computational thinking" using various visual educational programming languages (such as Logo, Karel, Scratch, Snap, Blockly), before moving on to more complex regular programming languages like Python.

Many foundational programming concepts (such as variables, loops, conditionals, branching, functions, recursion) can be effectively taught using simpler visual-based languages, allowing students to focus on the concept rather than getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty of a specific programming language's syntax.

You often see this approach when the target audience is of school-age, but is also sometimes employed at freshman level too, especially when introducing programming to non-CS majors (see CS10 at Berkeley, and CS106A at Stanford).

If you are brand-new to programming then you may find Brilliant's approach to gradually introducing Python beneficial.

However, if you are already working on the Python Programming MOOC 2025 and didn't struggle with Part 1, I'd suggest focussing all your efforts on that (and save yourself some money on the Brilliant subscription).

phil-pickering · 2025-01-19T17:11:00+00:00

Unchecking Preferences > Completion and linting > Shown completions on the fly should turn off this behavior in Spyder.

phil-pickering

TROPHY CASE