Computer Science
For Babies
(scroll down for more info)
Computer Science
For Babies
(scroll down for more info)
Computers are everywhere and increasingly woven into our children's future.
Computer Science for Babies are a series of books designed to help a growing baby's brain make fundamental connections to basic computer concepts early on. Even if your child eventually chooses a non-computer career, the deep understanding will last, easing life in an increasingly computer-driven society.
The books are designed by Eric Redmond, along with a team of educators and artists, guided by modern childhood development research. We're all dedicated to helping share technical knowledge to the next generation, including our own children.
"The spread of computers and the Internet will put jobs in two categories: People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do."
-- Marc Andreessen, co-creator of the Netscape web browser
"The spread of computers and the Internet will put jobs in two categories: People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do."
-- Marc Andreessen, co-creator of the Netscape web browser
The first Computer Science for Babies book introduces the developing mind of a 6-18 month old to the precepts of Boolean Logic, the underpinning of all of computer hardware and software. Long before a child can program the next Facebook, they must understand Boolean Logic.
Boolean Logic is built on the primitives AND, OR, and NOT. This book is structured like many other baby books, with colorful pictures and animals. But each set of pages also shape a baby's brain to comprehend conjunctive objects (AND), disjunctive options (OR), and logical negation (NOT). This book will help form the very basic concepts that underly all of computer science, and place your baby on a path to understand and control the world of computers.
There are only 10 types of people in the world.
Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
There are only 10 types of people in the world.
Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
If you took algebra in highschool, you may remember being introduced to functions in your teens (like, f(x) = x+1). In the third and final Computer Science for Babies book, we'll introduce the concept of Functions to 2-3 year olds. It turns out functions are another of those fundamental concepts of computer science that any kid can learn. It's all about input and output, or I/O.
This book is a coloring book, where your child can follow along and color various values going into, and coming out of functions. Like: purrs (output) come from a cat (function) when you pet it (input). Or happiness (output) comes from a child (function) when you feed her ice-cream (input)! Believe it or not, these associations are the fundamentals of functions, like: child(ice-cream) = happiness. Don't worry, we'll skip the formal proofs.
The next Computer Science for Babies book will focus on the fundamental counting scheme of computers: Binary Numbers. Unlike the standard number system (a.k.a., base 10, or decimal) that we all learn growing up, where we use ten numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), computers count with only 0 and 1 (a.k.a., base 2, or binary). Just like we can represent any number with only ten numerals (52 cards in a deck), computers can represent those same values with only two (110100 is 52 in binary).
It turns out young children's minds are very open to different number schemes, so we introduce a 3-5 year old to binary by counting undersea objects in a binary representation. Learning the natural language of computers will give your child a head start on another important building block of programming. To hold the interest of creative kids (they all are, it's OK, we know!), the information is presented as a fun rhyming story.
This series is always under development aiming for increasingly older kids.
Signup to be notified when the next books in the series are available!
This series is always under development aiming for increasingly older kids.
Signup to be notified when the next books in the series are available!
We'll send out updates on new books, materials, and events (and sometimes, new cutting edge research on early child development).
Our little project just launched, but we've been written up a bit over the world.