The holiday season is officially upon us! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or you simply enjoy all the festivities, there is plenty of free and fun stuff for your elementary and middle schoolers to partake in over the winter break. We’ve compiled a list of holiday coding activities, many of which can be done alone or with the whole family!
1) Code an Interactive Story or Holiday Card
There are plenty of fun and educational Scratch activities that allow your child to create their own games, stories, and animations. There are endless ideas of what can be created using Scratch, including creating your very own Snowball fight! You can also create a holiday-themed story, where you are the one delivering presents! Have a family member who lives out of town? Your kids can code their own animated Holiday cards to send to them! The possibilities are endless.
2) Snowflakes and Fireworks Using Python
No snowflakes for December this year? No problem! The turtle module in Python is a great tool to learn about the various concepts of programming by creating fun and engaging designs. For a holiday coding activity, we recommend this Snowflake Challenge. Want to keep going? Then make some fireworks come to life for the New Year!
3) Code Your Very Own Holiday Jingle
Do you have a child who is musically inclined and interested in learning how to code? Have them mash up the best of both worlds by having them code their own holiday song or a familiar holiday jingle.
Sonic-Pi is a free download for you to create code-based music. This program has a simple interface that will have you making music from the first line of code. Either follow the tutorial provided to create your own music or use the following guide to code the Twelve Days of Christmas.
You can also use EarSketch, an educational programming platform from Georgia Tech University that teaches you to code by creating music or remixing music using either Javascript or Python. Earsketch also has a coding blocks mode for those who are not quite comfortable with text-based programming.
4) Have Fun with the Santa Tracker
Google Labs has its yearly Santa Tracker website up and ready for kids, teachers, and parents to explore! Filled with fun and interactive games and activities, you can choose from trying an Elf Dance Off where you match an elf’s dance moves by coding the correct sequence of moves, or possibly using the Santa Tracker to see Santa’s current location and explore the world. Whichever you choose, there are plenty of activities for everyone throughout the holiday season.
5) Code Your Own Snowman with YCJ
There may not be snow on the ground, but at Youth Code Jam, we created a way for you to make your own snowmen with code! We use Scratch to help us make the snowmen of our wildest dreams come to life on screen by making them sing, move, and change the background. Code along with us and let’s see what you come up with.