Coding for Christmas: Fun, Festive Coding Projects for Kids

Use a Raspberry Pi to make Christmas projects

The Raspberry Pi is a miniature computer that’s both affordable and powerful. You can pick one up for well under £50, and then buy an accompanying “Maker advent calendar” for £40 (at the time of writing). This contains 12 festive coding projects which look excellent. I don’t have space to list these all here, but they include the following:

• LED lights
• Buttons
• Motion sensors

This really is a is a great way for junior coders to get stared. It runs open source software and is the perfect companion for festive coding projects. The Raspberry Pi can connect to all kinds of external devices, and the only real limit is imagination and time. This guided pack will really help get them and you started. Younger children will absolutely need help. This is an excellent way to keep children entertained during the Christmas holidays, especially before the big day.

You can see the advent calendar here:

https://thepihut.com/products/maker-advent-calendar-includes-raspberry-pi-pico-h

You can see further information and inspiration here:

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/christmas-lights

Create a digital Christmas card

Why not encourage your child to spread Christmas cheer by coding a personalised digital Christmas card for friends and family?

You could have them make their own webpage with their own Christmas message. The basics of HTML and CSS would get them to this point. They can then add interactivity to their Christmas card webpage using JavaScript.

The following tutorial is sound (this does assume CSS and HTML knowledge already), but it is fun to play with the provided source code and they will learn a lot.

https://www.codewizardshq.com/html-css-tutorial-holiday-card

Scratch – make a Christmas countdown card

Scratch is an excellent way to get started with coding. By following the below guide, children can quickly make a Christmas countdown timer of their own. This can then be sent electronically to family and friends as a card. The finished card will contain fun animation and sound effects.

Scratch is really creative, and is really visual, so is a great way for children to access the basics of coding. It was developed at MIT, and many schools use it already. It can be downloaded for free online or used in browser here:

https://scratch.mit.edu

The following guide contains a full guide on how to get started, including a follow along video tutorial:

https://learnlearn.uk/scratch/christmas-countdown-scratch-program/

Scratch – animate a Snowstorm

Whilst they wait for the big day, why not have your child use their scratch skills to make an animated snowstorm. They can quickly code up a beautiful winter scene of their own making. This will also help them to understand the basics of loops, which are an essential concept in computer programming.

There are plenty of similar tutorials online, but the following is a good one:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/757652190

Track Santa with Code

This is a step up in difficulty for more able / older coders who have outgrown the above examples.

Every year, Google offers a Santa tracker service via an API. “API” stands for “Application Programming Interface”, and basically is a system that allows different programs / applications to communicate.

FreeCodeCamp has an excellent guide for more able junior coders to use this to build their own maps, which you can follow here:

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-a-santa-tracker-app-with-next-js-react-leaflet

Once you understand how APIs work, you can really get going as a developer!

Good luck, and happy Christmas from everyone at Owl Tutors!

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