Bitsbox: App Coding for Beginners

Over the past 3 months or so, my daughter has been learning some app coding for beginners with a subscription to Bitsbox. Today I want to share our newest app coding challenges and the progress my daughter has made over the last 3 months. It has been a joy to see her to excited and engaged while learning javascript, and my son (a year younger) is now very interested in trying it out as well. If you’re looking for a fun way to teach or introduce coding to your kids, I hope you will check out this entire series to see what Bitsbox has to offer.

Looking for a fun and engaging way to teach app coding for beginners? Bitsbox is a kid-friendly and innovative option that will teach computer programming basics, while challenging kids in a fun way.

*Please Note: This post was sponsored by Bitsbox and I was compensated for my time in writing this review. All opinions, however, are my own and I was not required to write a positive review. See our full disclosure here.*

What is Bitsbox? App Coding for Beginners

If you’ve missed my previous posts, Bitsbox is a website where kids as young as seven can learn computer programming.

It’s also a monthly subscription box which includes tons of fun coding exercises that kids can type up themselves and then customize.

Looking for a fun and non-threatening way to teach kids to code? Bitsbox makes it easy, and you don't even have to know code yourself! Learn computer programming alongside your kids with this fun resource.

Each of the coding challenges include bits of code written in Javascript, which kids type up themselves and can then change or customize to make it their own.

And if you’re only interested in a one time purchase, you can see those options here.

This month, we’ve been working through our third box, with challenges that are becoming increasingly more difficult than the ones in the first box.

If you’d like to see our complete journey with Bitsbox, you can see first impressions and the first box here, and then see how the challenges changed in box two here.

What’s New in Bitsbox #3:

As I’ve mentioned, each box has a fun theme, and this month the theme was “A land far away.” It included fun fairy-tale like challenges, characters and background fills.

Looking for a fun and engaging way to teach app coding for beginners? Bitsbox is a kid-friendly and innovative option that will teach computer programming basics, while challenging kids in a fun way.

My daughter loved this theme, and has enjoyed the magical types of challenges.

This box also included a tracking card with fun stickers, so she can mark off challenges as she completes them. She’s really enjoyed this!

Looking for a fun and engaging way to teach app coding for beginners? Bitsbox is a kid-friendly and innovative option that will teach computer programming basics, while challenging kids in a fun way.

Coding wise, there are a couple of new skills introduced in this box. First, she has learned to create an array (a list) to enable different choices of backgrounds or characters.

Second, this box introduces if/else statements, which are an important building block in computer programming. This allows conditional types of options into the program.

For example, if you want a character to change if a certain condition is met (say you want the frog to change into a prince if you tap him), but otherwise to stay the same (or change into something different) you would use an if/else statement.

In other words, you’re telling the app “If this is true, do this.” “If this is NOT true, do this.”

Progress Made Over Three Months:

My daughter is still loving the coding challenges, and has learned so much thanks to Bitsbox.

I love that even as the apps get more challenging, they’re still kid-friendly. After coding an app, my daughter (and often my other kids as well) will play with it over and over, tweaking things to change the character, sounds, etc.

Looking for a fun and engaging way to teach app coding for beginners? Bitsbox is a kid-friendly and innovative option that will teach computer programming basics, while challenging kids in a fun way.

She’s also getting better at coding apps from scratch. She still needs my help, but she can often come up with the code (0r pieces of code) to try on her own.

She’s also improved a great deal at catching mistakes.

When typing up the code, if you don’t type something correctly, even so much as a missing parentheses, the code won’t work.

Initially, this frustrated her a great deal. But as she continues to practice and learn, she’s better able to look for specific, common errors, and spot silly typos.

I’m so impressed to see her catching her own mistakes, because this can be one of the most difficult parts of computer programming: thinking you’ve completed the code, only to discover it doesn’t run properly.

Now that she has a binder full of cards with app coding challenges, as well as tons of trading cards, she’s keeping quite busy. There are still a lot of apps that she hasn’t coded yet, so she’ll be working her way through them.

Looking for a fun and engaging way to teach app coding for beginners? Bitsbox is a kid-friendly and innovative option that will teach computer programming basics, while challenging kids in a fun way.

She’s also going to start teaching her brother how to type the code and play with the apps. I love that combining the Bitsbox website with the app challenges means my kids can continue to practice coding.

Even if they get bored with their stack of cards, there are other apps to try on the website.

If you’re looking for fun and engaging app coding for beginners, definitely check out Bitsbox.

Want to try out Bitsbox for yourself?

There are tons of options available for families as well as classroom teachers!

You can sign up for a monthly subscription (which is what we have) and you can even save 20%!

Use my unique code: MATHGEEK20 to save 20% on your first month’s subscription.

Or check out their shop here to make a one time purchase.

You can also stay in touch with them and learn about special offers by signing up for their emails:

And if you’ve tried Bitsbox with your kids, be sure to share your experience in the comments!

One Comment

  1. My 5yo is loving Bitsbox too. It takes him awhile to type it in, but he is so proud of himself. Bonus: he is getting familiar with the keyboard.

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