Summer is an excellent opportunity for kids to code — more hours are available to discover new interests or dive into passions. Kids coding summer camps are extremely popular, however you don’t want a one-size-fits-all camp. It should be personalized to ensure they learn and have fun.
Our year-round mentoring pairs each kid with an impressive college instructor for weekly 90 minute sessions. Our curriculum, constantly improved since 2011, is the perfect blend of structure and open-ended projects for independence and grit.
During the summer we offer a personalized camp option to accelerate the learning. These are 3 hours per day with a private instructor, whether one-on-one or with a couple friends.
Hear From a Student
Scratch For Kids Learning to Code
Many of our elementary school students begin with Scratch drag-and-drop coding to learn the fundamentals. Breakout Mentors currently is working with 24 kids in Scratch! Even though it is beginner friendly, it includes important concepts like loops, conditionals, and variables. Kids love to make their own versions of games, for example the classic game Space Invaders. Mentors encourage the students to add their own creative features, like speeding up the enemies after reaching 10 points.
As students progress, mentors are able to introduce more advanced concepts and encourage increasingly complex projects. Elementary schoolers who work with Breakout Mentors over months and years will eventually move from Scratch to a language they type like Python or Java.
What parents say…
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.
Mother of 6th grade boy in Palo Alto
Both our sons have mentors and we’re very happy with the personalized approach for each. The younger is learning Scratch and older Java. Both boys were interested in coding for a while and did several summer camps, but we were aimed to continue learning during the school year. We also needed help channeling their interest into a more focused direction with goals and milestones. Breakout Mentors has exceeded our expectations, providing engaging instruction that challenges them. The boys take pride in their projects and continue to have fun!
The mentor focuses on teaching my son to think, not just follow. Software conventions, and reasons behind them, are developed with an understanding of their purpose, not just ‘do it this way because I said so’ mentality. In addition, the mentor encourages my son to check documentation for answers and find solutions that make sense for the project. My son feels proud of the work he completes and is motivated to work on his projects independently between sessions!
What students say…
