Owning the Curriculum for a K–12 Coding Program

Overview

Code For Fun teaches coding to students aged 5 to 15 through five program lines: CS League, after-school classes, code camps, workshops, and one-on-one Code with a Coach. I own the curriculum for all of them. I decide what gets built and how it’s taught, and I build it myself or guide the designers who do.

When I started, there were many content creators and no shared reference for how a lesson should be built. The flagship program, CS League, ran for six months, which was too short for students to go deep into any concept. Most of my work since has been fixing those two things and building on them.

A shared lesson standard

I wrote the Lesson Design Reference, the standard every content creator at Code For Fun now follows. It sets:

• •Three objectives for every lesson: conceptual, skill-based, and critical thinking
• •I Do / We Do / You Do pacing, tuned for each program line
• •A consistent unit arc: build skills, brainstorm, build, practice, present
• •A checkpoint: move on when about 80% of students can do it unassisted
• •An AI boundary naming the one thing each student must make themselves
• •Non-negotiables: small classes, project-based learning, CSTA alignment

Redesigning CS League

I led the redesign of CS League from a six-month program into a year-long progression, working it through with the curriculum team. Students now climb a ten-tier ladder from ages 6 to 15, from Hero through Titan to Legend, with time to go deeper at every stage.

• •Younger tiers start with robots and block-based coding; by Legend, students write Python
• •Each tier is built for students slightly older than its label, so no one is rushed
• •A placement system matches new students to the right tier, using a conversation, a hands-on coding task, and instructor observation
• •I talk with parents directly about where their child is and where they go next

Teaching AI by age

I built a four-pillar framework for AI education (AI literacy, hands-on machine learning, coding with AI, and responsible AI) and mapped it tier by tier, so each age group learns what it’s ready for. I presented it to Code For Fun’s external Curriculum Committee, which I lead.

Courses for every age

I’ve built or overseen courses for every age Code For Fun teaches: robotics with Bee-Bots, Ozobots and Micro:bit; game design in Scratch and MakeCode Arcade; 3D design in TinkerCAD and Blender; and Python from first programs through data science. A few examples:

• •Data Science with Python (age 14). Students go from exploring a dataset to a Demo Day, where each one presents their findings to parents.
• •Python Level 1 (age 11). Students master conditionals, loops and lists through small game projects before moving on, ending in a graduation presentation. Functions and dictionaries are held back for the next level on purpose.
• •Build Your First AI: Escape the Maze! Students train a model in Teachable Machine and use it to steer a game they build in Scratch.
• •NVIDIA Bring Your Kids to Work Day. I taught the Python session in 2025 and 2026.

Instructors and improvement

• •Seasonal training for 50+ part-time instructors a year
• •Feedback every two weeks, plus classroom observation
• •I teach some classes myself to pilot new curriculum before it rolls out
• •After each season, I combine instructor and student surveys with what I observed, and turn it into a staged improvement plan

Course materials are internal to Code For Fun, so this page describes the work rather than showing it.