4 Outstanding Things All Remarkable Kids Share
Have you heard about the 12 -year-old who built 5 apps and is speaking at a national tech gathering?
What about the 16-year-old who made an app that does math?
Or the 17-year-old who sold an app to Yahoo! for $30 million?
These kids are special – there’s no doubt about it. But what’s even more remarkable is the skills these kids have aren’t all that unique. In fact, with the right support and encouragement, any kid could start coding like these examples.
Kids Only Need a Few Things to Create Amazing Tech
When we were kids, we might have seen stories on the news about young people doing exceptional things with technology. “10-year-old genius fixes broken computers and sells them for big bucks!”
These stories always seemed to include the kid explaining that “anyone can do it.” And the kid was right. Anyone could do something like that, but they usually had to know someone who already understood technology and could share knowledge. It simply wasn’t as easy to find great tutorials on the internet back then.
Now, everything has changed. We now live in an age where anyone can learn anything online from qualified instructors. There’s no need to hope someone in your neighborhood already knows how to code, build computers, or do real-world science. We can find all that online.
From the stories above, there are a few things in common:
- Learning: The kids learned to code through platforms that guided them through the learning process
- Encouragement: The kids had support from their parents and were encouraged to pursue their tech hobbies
- Problem-solving: All these kids have a problem-solving mindset – instead of seeing a problem, they look for and build their own solutions
- Taking it one step at a time: Finally, these kids started small, learning gradually until they were able to create the apps or tools they wanted
With these four things, any kid can learn how to create awesome tech, like the apps described above. However, there’s something else kids need to know so they don’t get discouraged and quit.
If Kids Have This, They Can Avoid Discouragement and Succeed
With so many jobs in the future relying on technology, one would think schools would be scrambling to teach tech skills. But this isn’t so. In fact, this gap can be frustrating for children.
“A lot of kids my age want to learn, but there’s no place to go because the schools aren’t teaching programming,” said Thomas Suarez. Thomas is the 15-year-old founder of CarrotCorp and an app designer. He’s currently working on a patent-pending 3D printer that’s 10-times faster than many of the current at-home options.
“It’s really frustrating actually. It was really frustrating for me and it still kind of is that we don’t have any programming classes or any real tech classes at my school,” says Thomas.
“It’s something I really believe we should have.”
Thomas is right: kids should have access to resources that teach them critical 21st century skills.
(That’s why the Because Learning team works so hard to bring hands-on STEM experiences to hundreds of schools in over 30 countries.)
But the good news is these skills don’t just have to be learned at school. As these exceptional kids have shown us, it’s possible to learn skills at home like coding, app development, assembling computer hardware, and more.
Here’s the hard part: lots of STEM and coding programs designed for kids have one of two problems:
- They are either too simple, and kids outgrow them too quickly
- They are designed for adults, making them a little discouraging for kids who are psychologically proven to need a sense of accomplishment as they learn
The first problem – kids outgrowing STEM toys too quickly – is also a problem for our wallets. STEM toys are expensive, sometimes costing hundreds of dollars for something that’s only used for a few months.
What do kids need to stay motivated and succeed, then?
They need a learning platform designed by people who understand how children learn. And parents need that platform to be affordable so they can encourage their kids to learn without worrying about it being too expensive. That system needs to give children those moments where they see how they successfully coded a program or assembled a sensor or did something awesome. Because when kids do something cool, and they see it, they have one of those “I built this!” moments.
The “I built this!” feeling helps kids feel excited about moving on to the next lesson and learning even more skills.
How to Give Your Kids Those “I Built This!” Moments and Encourage Them to Create Amazing Technology
Remember, there were four traits in common with the successful kids we shared: learning, encouragement, problem-solving, and taking it one step at a time. If you can provide your child with each, you’ll set her or him up for a future of success.
A moment ago, we mentioned how the Because Learning Sensor Kits and lessons are being used in over 30 countries and in hundreds of classrooms. Top educators realize our platform brings remarkable experiences to their students.
Now, we’re offering our Sensor Kits and 120+ lessons to kids at home at a low, affordable price.
The Because Learning Sensor Kit and lessons are the perfect way to give your kids all four traits so they can have “I build this!” moments. Here’s how:
Learning: Each lesson is organized by subject, grade level, and sensor type. This helps kids find what they want to learn. Plus, our Sensor Kits are built with open-source hardware. This means they can use the hardware from Because Learning in any way their imaginations allow. Just check out this video of a grad student using our hardware with a drone!
Encouragement: Designed by experienced teachers, our lessons carefully guide learners through each step. And at each step, kids can test and see how they’re succeeding at learning something new. This excites them and makes them want to learn more. Just check out this video to see how excited one child was at successfully measuring temperature with the Sensor Kit:
Problem-solving: While we want kids to feel encouraged, we don’t want to take away the challenge of problem-solving. When kids solve problems, they feel a special sense of accomplishment. Each lesson includes critical questions to get kids thinking about their problems, experimenting more on their own, and practicing solving problems.
Taking it one step at a time: Kids won’t learn everything in a day, especially since we have hundreds of lessons for them to do. One day, they’ll learn the basics of coding and computer hardware. Another, they’ll learn about science and temperature, doing experiments where they take real-world measurements and data. Our goal is to help you kids love learning without getting discouraged, and our lessons do that really well. And since we add 5 new lessons every month, your kids will build on their knowledge and skill sets.
A Because Learning subscription is the perfect way to introduce your kids to real-world science, technology, engineering and math problems.
Here’s the big question: how much is lifelong learning worth to your child? As a parent, I’d gladly pay any price if I knew it would give my child a lifelong advantage.
Because Learning is just $21 per month. That includes everything your kid needs to start learning critical skills for life, such as our sensor kit that connects to our web-based lessons.
Getting a subscription is easy. Just click this link, enter your information, and subscribe.
And if you ever want to cancel your subscription, that’s easy, too. Just email us, and we’ll immediately cancel.
Here’s a preview of our lessons for December. They focus on the OLED screen (that’s the same type of screen that comes in the latest smartphones like the iPhone X):
Help Your Child Do Something Exceptional
At Because Learning, we believe every child can be exceptional. We know they only need the right support and resources to get started.
And as parents, we know it shouldn’t cost as much as a car payment just to teach our kids 21st-century skills.
We’ve designed our platform – our Sensor Kit and web-based lessons – with affordability and learning in mind. We know someday your kid will grow into building phone apps, computer hardware, and other awesome things – and that’s okay! That’s why we chose the Arduino platform as the hardware for our sensor kit. It grows with your child through middle school, high school, and even beyond.
Even if you kid learns one thing each month that benefits her or him for life, $21/month is an exceptional bargain.
Check out our subscription here and see your child’s “I built this!” moments for yourself.
