ABC's and Sweet Tea: CodeWizardsHQ ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

Gavin recently had the opportunity to take a fun coding class from CodeWizardsHQ! They have a fantastic curriculum all geared towards homeschool students.

Gav honestly didn't know exactly what coding was when I told him about the class. Being a "gamer," he knew it had something to do with the making of video games but not much past that. He has for sure never taken any kind of class that involved coding. After explaining a little bit about it to him, he was really excited to learn more.

So I want to talk first about what CodeWizardsHQ offers. It is geared for students from the range of 5th-10th grade. One thing that drew me in quickly is that the classes are all on-line. We are so busy as homeschooling parents that sometimes driving to one more event can be a deal breaker. You don't have to worry about that here. These are 12 week courses, which are done weekly with LIVE classes and a real time instructor right from the comfort of your home. The classes are all interactive and hands on. This makes learning so much easier and a lot more fun. Another benefit to CodeWizardsHQ is that the classes are small with only 6 to 8 students per class. This will make much better use of your hour since the instructor won't have to divide his attention to a large group of kids. They also offer 24/7 access to the coding platform, so that way your child can continue to work on their projects and assignments even after the class is over.

Here's a great video explaining coding a little more.

Our Experience ~

We were offered a one time class for this review, basically to let the student's dip their toe in the water of coding. It was an introductory class, which was perfect for Gav since he was new to coding. We were given instructions through email and told where to be for our class. Logging into the dashboard was very simple and easy to understand. You really need to make sure that you are on an actual computer for the classes because you will be switching screens, and that is just not very feasible on a tablet or phone. When it was time for class to start, our instructor introduced himself and then went around the "room" so to speak, and had everyone in the class introduce themselves too. He also asked them what they would like to learn to code. Gav was super excited about the class, but as soon as it started he got nervous, and didn't want to speak very much. The instructor, Samuel Hoffman, was so kind and patient with all of the new and nervous students.

When class started, he explained to them where to go in their dashboard so they could start their first lesson/project. He talked to them about working in the "editor" and how they could start designing right from there. I knew this would be right up Gav's alley when I saw that it was going to be a super hero/heroine comic strip.

Like I said, this lesson was very basic for the beginner, but it ended up letting them create something fun! They were shown how to create the individual boxes for the comic strip, and then how to change the character, text, and background by just changing a few of the words in the code. They got to practice this by themselves after the initial lesson was done, but Mr. Hoffman was right there to answer any questions.

Here's what Gav's coding looked like during the lesson.

And this is what he finished with.

Gav worked very slow because he gets so nervous under pressure, so we weren't able to do show and tell. Other than working slow, he really enjoyed this class and what he was creating.

CodeWizardsHQ is not just for homeschool students, but they do have a special offer just for homeschoolers. The more students that they can have in a class the cheaper it is per student. They also offer a more flexible schedule for homeschoolers so that they can choose their own class time.

I would definitely recommend this as a great resource if your child is seriously into coding. This is a FULL course to get your student fully prepared for college, and to have a successful career. As much as Gav liked the class, I'm not sure if this would be something long term for him. In my opinion, it is very pricey even with the homeschool special offers. For us to spend that kind of money, he would have to be looking at coding and programming as a career possibility, and not just for fun.

Again, the class was fantastic. The instructor did a great job of explaining things, and helping each child out individually if needed. I can only imagine what could be accomplished in a month with this course! I would highly recommend CodeWizardsHQ for anyone but especially for children that want to take coding to the next level.