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
Berkeley Kids Learning to Code
In the Berkeley area there are currently several kids working one-on-one with an exciting University of California, Berkeley mentor. Overall we have 115 students across the Bay Area, including many for multiple years — there is truly no limit to how far students can go!
The weekly session time and location will fit conveniently into your schedule, taken into account when pairing your son or daughter with the perfect mentor. The majority of sessions are held online, but you can also travel to the college campus for an empowering learning experience. In-home may be available for an extra-charge.
Beginner Kids Coding
The first kids coding experience is pivotal as beginners will quickly decide if they are interested in continuing. They need to be challenged at the perfect pace, with the support necessary to overcome challenges. It requires structure to learn the fundamentals, but enough flexibility to have fun bringing their own creative ideas to life.
Most Breakout Mentors 8 to 11 year-old beginners start with the drag-and-drop coding language Scratch. Kids are able to make fun games right away while mastering the fundamentals. Many older kids are interested in immediately jumping into a language with typed code, like Python or Java. We start with a series of small projects to establish the basics. Students quickly progress to making games like Pong, Breakout, and Space Invaders with their own creative features.
Regardless of the programming language, Breakout Mentors goes beyond tutoring – our mentors constantly adjust the difficulty to be just right. Kids are able to advance at their own pace, always challenged and having fun.
What parents say…
Breakout Mentors was exactly what I was looking for. We started 2 years ago when my daughter was 11 and now she is an expert Scratch coder which translated easily into learning Python! Her mentors don’t tell her what to do, they help her figure it out. They push her to make her projects better and more complex. They treat her like a peer and do things like white boarding sessions and have passionate discussions about programming logic during her sessions. Both of her mentors have been women, which has been amazing. And an added benefit is she loves going to the CAL engineering library every week, wants to be an engineer and attend MIT! It’s ignited her passion about STEM subjects and she is so driven now. This program is truly amazing. I can’t say enough good things about it.
Mother of 13 year old girl in Berkeley
Our son who has a strong aptitude for math – we knew that he would love the challenges that coding could provide, but struggled to find a program that engaged and inspired him. 2 years ago when I reached out to Breakout Mentors, I knew that we finally found the right place. They paired our son with an amazing mentor – a student at UC Berkeley – and the two have been working together ever since. His mentor has challenged and inspired our son immensely. They started with text based games in basic Python syntax and logic, then our son developed games from scratch, explored CodingBat and other computer science tutoring websites, worked on object-oriented programming and classes, and is now working on APIs, data visualization and graphing. We cannot rave enough about Breakout Mentors. My only wish is that we found them sooner!
Breakout Mentors has been an incredibly positive experience for my son. With no previous coding experience, my son has really taken to it and seriously looks forward to his weekly lesson with his mentor. Following a session, he says that he needs time to recover as his ‘brain hurts’ – his mentor really pushes him in a productive, skillful and gentle way. Breakout Mentors has been a truly unique gem – on all dimensions.
What students say…
