Our New Coding Club

Riverbend has started an exciting new after school club for students in grades 3-5, called Coding Club. “What is that?,” you may ask. Remember those Spanish Clubs or Latin Clubs when you were growing up? Well, this is similar in that it is a different language….a computer language. It’s computer science. And the kids are loving it.

These 35 elementary students meet once a week for an hour to solve computer-programming challenges, learn how to use programming tools such as loops, and even create their own animations and games. Club member and 5^th grader, Braiden Green, says, “It’s cool how we get to make video games and learn how to do computer programming in a fun way.”

When club organizer, Amanda Northrup, found out about the stunning gap between programming jobs available and people trained to have those jobs, she knew a Riverbend Coding Club would make an important difference in her students’ lives. “Coding is a new and fundamental literacy,” she said, “And the best part is that these students love it. Not to mention the fact that the skills they’re learning will help them in other subjects, too.”