We often get asked by students & parents about the books, electronic kits & websites we recommend to futher coding and technology knowledge.
Here’s a list things we recommend at different levels.
Ages 5-8
- Scratch Starter Projects
- Hour of Code: Minecraft
- Code Club - Scratch Module I
- Code Club - Microbits
- Microbit - Blocks Lessons
Books
- Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding
- Hello Ruby: Journey Inside the Computer
- Coding Beginners in Scratch
- Adventures in Raspberry Pi
Electronic kits
- Pimoroni - Adventures in Raspberry Pi, Parts Kit
- Pimoroni - Microbit - Starter kit
- Pimoroni - BitBot, robot for Microbit
Ages 8+
- Code Club - Websites Module I
- Code Club - Raspberry Pi Module I
- Code Club - Sonic Pi
- Code.org - Game Lab
- Code.org - App Lab
- Arduino - programming for electronics
Books
Electronic kits
- Amazon - Arduino Uno starter kit
- Pimoroni - Raspberry Pi 3 B+ starter kit(£90)
- Pimoroni - Pirate Radio Kit (£40)
- CoolComponents - Microbit Robot Kit (£40)
- CoolComponents - Flotilla extensions for Raspberry Pi
The following resources are for more advanced programmers, once you have a grasp on the basics
Learning to program
- Exercism.io - practice by solving problems & talking about them with others
- Rosalind - Learning Python
- Code Academy Pro: Websites from scratch ($199)
Books
Programming for the web
- Udemy - Complete Web Developer Course (video) (£12)
- Learn React by building a web app (video)
- Code Academy Pro: Front end apps from Scratch ($199)
- SQLBolt - Learning SQL & Databases through exercises
Physical computing, Internet of Things
Code design & structure
Mathematics, Cryptography & Engineering
Commercial programming courses
These programming courses offer an alternative to an (often very expensive) University Computer Science course. They promise to deliver a course that will make you ready to work as a paid Computer Programmer within 8-12 weeks.