How I started teaching my Kids programming — C# and Unity 3D — The Best start

3 min readMar 14, 2024

TL;DR

My kids (4 and 6 year-old) wanted to try to create a computer game. I decided to show them Unity 3D. And here is the recipe that works for my kids

The first step was quite easy. I gave them Unity 3D and assets for creating a game world and the first person controller. After a while, they were able to test their own game world.
The second step was interesting. I tried to explain them very basics of let say OOP — Objects, properties, methods, events. It is comparable with the real-world. Whiteboard is a great tool :)
The last step was a bit of programming but with very strong support from my side.

I wish I had known these tools when I started programming :)

You can see this story as video here:

How to learn programming and creating computer games?

Here is the recipe that works for my kids.

Three the most important steps

Step #1 — Easy and Fun

The most important thing. It must be Easy and Fun in the beginning. Start with creating some visuals like an open world.

Download some free assets from Unity store and create

Terrain — Paths, mountains, lakes

Add textures — add basic texture like grass that cover all terrain, then add next testure layers like rocks, paths, …

Add trees bush, …

Step #2 — Programming basics

It must be simplified without all details. Assign programming subject like object, property, method and event to game or real-world works in our case.

For example:

What is an object? — It can be Player in a game. Right?
What is a Property? — It can be Player’s name or number of points.
What is a behavior or method? — It can be something a player can do. For example player can pick up weapon
What is an Event? — It can be a moment when a player collides with some other object like a new weapon. It’s a code that is called when the event is raised.