Coding Club Python Basics Level 1 (Coding Club, Level 1)

My daughter has recently become interested in coding and teaching herself how to program. This book seems to be helping her. I am afraid I can't review it based on the merits of it's programming teaching because I know very little about Python. However, my programmer husband looked at it and said that it was a great start for someone who knows very little about programming. This is not the type of book you would hand a high school student because it really is written for a younger student. My middle school student has enjoyed using it though. My daughter has been able to use this book to learn some basic skills and start programming. If she continues to learn and enjoy using htis book we will most likely buy book two. Enjoy.

I wanted to get my kids and some friends started on programming but I am not a programmer. I identified Python as a good place to start, and chose this series as my "textbooks" for the group. I found the Coding Club books to be visually appealing and well organized. As beginners all around, we were able to get through the projects and teach each other using these materials. The level 2 book was also excellent for teaching in a group. Level 3 is a great book but it's better suited for individual work at their own pace, or needs an instructor who knows more than I do. Recommend.

This is a thin book, but packed with information. It starts with a short, sweet explanation of the importance and relevance of programming, followed by an introduction to the IDLE interpreter. Without wasting too much time, however, it breaks right into coding the first program: Magic 8-ball with the Random library. By the end of the book, the projects involve the Tkinter library and graphics. The chapters are bite-sized, and the information is presented in clear, colorful ways. The approach, with its supporting illustrations, resembles the Head First series, but is clearly geared towards kids. The author obviously understands the challenges of keeping a child's attention: this book has flip-chart style binding, is visually interesting, while exercises and accomplishments occur quickly and frequently. I work in education, and I'm planning to use this book in an after-school coding program. I'm thrilled to see that sequels (levels 2 & 3) are planned. I also recommend Python for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Programming

I purchased this book to add to my library of basic Python references. The book has a natural progression which is nice and easy to follow. If you already know a bit of Python and would like a few more exercises or examples I would highly suggest this book. I used a couple of the activities in a class I teach, and the kids really enjoyed them. The last activity doesn't flow conceptional with the other sections. I can only speculate why they ended the book with essentially a "Logo" lesson.

Thank you.

Really, really well written. A wonderful intro to python. Roffey explains python in an easily understood manner and even anticipates your mistakes! A wonderful book and I will look for more from this excellent writer.

my child loves this book!

Great product

This is a primary programming book written for youngsters: I am over 60 and looking to learn a simple programming language having toyed, since the early 80's with DOS, Visual Basic and, for the briefest while with Java and remembering little or nothing. However, this book, part of a series, is progressive, comprehensible and comprehensive: Python is fairly easy to understand and the terms of reference are explained well in the text of this book. I am making progress and enjoying my excursion into programming, picking it up slowly and becoming capable of working out the problems and tests at this level, at least. Kids, I am sure, will pick this up and fly with it, but anyone, including people like me, will gain a lot from working through the series and using what they learn. I run a training organisation and can see how useful it might be to be able to write some simple programmes that will aid or support various areas of training that we do. Anyway, a well written and easy to understand book: recommended.

As a twenty-something who was taught a small amount of HTML at school and has seen how useful coding can be, I decided to learn a programming language. For the life of me I cannot remember how I ended up choosing Python but I bought this book because I wanted something very basic and inexpensive. It is full colour and the content is amazing. It is step by step but not too basic. If you want an age range then I would say 12+. I got through the 'Hello World' section quite quickly but then I found the activities and concepts gradually more challenging, but not annoyingly difficult - a type of I-love-learning challenging. Lots of 'games' to program that result in the most composed of adults grin with excitement. Absolutely love it and I bought level 2 and level 3. The downloads that you get access to with it are very useful. I just found some code flashcards on the site that will be very useful.

Bought for my grandson who wants to learn programming. I thought it was well explained with 5 example programs to code.

My son aged 10 has written a couple of small scratch games on the Pi so I bought him (and the rest of the family) the Python Basics book to get him started with formal programming. The good points: It is very well constructed, both physically and content. I just handed him the book, he read the first bits then we did 'Hello World!' together and he then took off himself. One or two minor niggles: 1. No explaination of modulus. I got him to work out what it meant by trying different numbers till he could spot what was going on. 2. With the default IDLE on the Pi, the division is context sensitive. If you do 111/4 (as suggested), you get an integer answer, not a floating point. Otherwise it looks really well put together. We haven't got as far as the event driven graphics programming (quite a jump for a novice which may be a bit too much), but we'll see how it goes. So far it is definitely the sort of book I would recommend getting from a library, as once you have gone through it you will be able to move on to a more advanced text. For primary schools and first years in secondary it should be a good 'self learn' text. The physical construction of a spiral binding means it lays flat on the desk - good thinking. Might be nice for future editions to have more space to put notes in.

This book introduced my 9 year old to his first coding along with a raspberry pi. It is very clearly written. Child friendly in presentation but also covers each aspect fully, I could not be happier with the progress he has made nor the excitement and enthusiasm as he grasps the concepts and adds his own little bits to each challenge. I have bought the whole set I like them so much. I have 20 plus years experience in software dev but any adult with just basic computer use could work through learning with their child without any problem. In my view it is much better to introduce kids to a real programming language over your scratch style block building environments.