There are many options for kids learning to code, Breakout Mentors is the most personalized and designed for long-term growth. Discover how your son or daughter will advance through consistent challenges from an impressive college instructor.
Each student is carefully matched with an exciting mentor who will customize the project-based learning. Our curriculum, constantly improved since 2011, is the perfect blend of structure and open-ended projects for independence and grit.
Hold a 90 minute session with the same mentor each week, fit conveniently into your schedule. Students keep advancing year-round at the perfect pace and are proud of the fun games and projects they create.
Hear From a Student
Java For Kids Learning to Code
Many of our 8 year-old students use Java to learn programming fundamentals. Breakout Mentors is currently working with 19 kids in Java! It is an excellent language for learning to problem-solve like a computer scientist and to become comfortable with concepts like loops, conditionals, functions, and object-oriented programming. Kids love to make their own versions of games, including the classic Atari game Breakout. Mentors encourage the students to add their own creative features, like after hitting the ball five times the paddle shrinks.
As students progress, mentors are able to introduce more advanced concepts and encourage increasingly complex projects. 8 Year-Olds who work with Breakout Mentors over months and years will eventually move to advanced apps and projects, USACO Competition Programming Academy, or Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Academy.
What parents say…
Breakout Mentors was exactly what we were looking for when our 11 year old son asked to learn programming. He connected quickly with his mentor, who has taught him things beyond our knowledge. After his last session, he tried to explain to me some aspect of the programming he just learned and then said ‘I feel so proud of myself.’ We are proud of him too and thankful for Breakout Mentors.
Father of 6th grade boy in Palo Alto
We just passed our second anniversary with Breakout Mentors. Our 12-year-old son has had two mentors and they’ve both been terrific: enthusiastic, knowledgeable, professional, and patient. They’ve been great about building a curriculum on the fly around his interests and keeping him engaged and learning. Highly recommended.
My son was interested in coding from a very young age. We have tons of books at home, however, only Breakout Mentors actually helped my son to build on his interest and develop some skills. The lessons are fun and introduce serious coding concepts in a way kids can grasp. My son started with making games in Scratch. Moving from little projects to bigger and more complex ones, he has learned the fundamentals and now is moving to Java. He shows me his work after each lesson since he is very proud of his accomplishments and can’t wait to show them off.
What students say…
