Girl Guide For Parents
User Manual:
Open the PDF directly: View PDF 
.
Page Count: 8
1
Supporting CoderDojo Girls
A Guide for Parents & Guardians
2
“Don’t let anyone or
anything stop you”
–Garima Singh
Founder of Round Rock Dojo, Texas
3
29% of
Mentors
were female
In 2016
29% of Dojo
Aendees were
Girls
that's
13,900+
female
Ninjas
4
CoderDojo gives your daughter an opportunity
to learn how to code and create with technology.
Coding (also called programming) is the instrucons
that people write to tell technology what to do!
Why should my
daughter join
CoderDojo?
Why is it important for girls to
learn code?
Learning to code gives girls the skills, knowledge and condence
necessary to understand the increasingly digital world that we live in.
CoderDojo gives young people a unique opportunity to be creave
and express themselves through their projects. For one girl this may
be creang a website showcasing their favourite sports team, while
for another it could be developing an educaonal app to help with
learning how to spell. This leads girls on a learning journey to improv-
ing various so skills such communicaon, mentoring, teamwork and
presentaon skills. It also helps develop their resilience and persever-
ance as coding is an iterave problem-solving process.
“An understanding of
computer science is
becoming increasingly
essenal in today’s
world”
Sheryl Sandberg,
COO Facebook
5
What will my daughter
learn at a Dojo?
Inially, she will learn hard technical skills such as how to
build a website using HTML and CSS or how to create an
app using Javascript or how to design a game. In addion,
your daughter will learn an abundance of so skills,
including: collaboraon, idea and thought sharing,
problem-solving, goal-seng, project management,
and how to support herself and others in an
inclusive, free and fun environment. All of these
skills will serve your daughter whatever she
chooses to do as she grows older!
Rewarding Progress
Many Dojos use digital badges as a way to
acknowledge and represent skills achieved by
aendees at Dojos. They are similar to a
digital version of a scouts badge which are
awarded once someone reaches a certain
level, learns a parcular skill or aends a
certain number of Dojos. In CoderDojo we
believe that creavity should be rewarded!
There are many benets to digital badges,
they serve as proof of achievement and can
be built up similar to a digital CV. They are a
great method of validang skills which aren’t
always visible. Ninjas, Mentors and Champions can
all be awarded badges!
6
Children under 15 are oen required to have a parent/guardian
accompany them for the duraon of a Dojo. As a result, many parents
engage in volunteering, oen learning in tandem with their daugh-
ters. This creates a supporve learning atmosphere. Young girls who
see their guardians & peers helping out and learning too are oen
more engaged with their own projects.
Supporng your
daughter’s learning
journey
Provide toys and resources
that facilitate tech creavity.
Our brand new book,
CoderDojo Nano: Create with
Code, is great for encouraging
girls to develop coding skills at
their own pace.
Remember, learning to program can be a challenging experience for
many young people. Oen the biggest challenge new programmers
face is not around their skill set, but around their mindset. Youths with
a xed mindset perceive their capacity for understanding to be set in
stone and determined by their inial experience of the topic.
Encourage your daughter to have a growth mindset and see learning
as an ongoing process throughout her life where new skills simply
haven’t been learnt yet. With a growth mindset, failures become part
of the journey which once examined, helps to develop their under-
standing. Spur them on by celebrang their minor successes, which in
turn will help build their condence.
7
There is a wealth of free, easy to follow, learning
resources available to parents from CoderDojo. On
our website parents can nd and print out “Sushi
Cards”: these are easy to follow concept cards for
various programming languages.
“As a non-technical mum I was surprised at how
interested I became in my daughter’s projects. I
never thought I’d enjoy helping her, but it’s
amazing how easy CoderDojo makes learning
code. If I can learn a few things anyone can”
–Rachel
“CoderDojo is really fun; I like designing cool
projects and making things work myself just
how I want them to.”
–Lexi
Addional Resources
Make a Flappy Bird Game: Hour of Code (Ages 6-10)
Minecra: Hour of Code (Ages 6-10)
Frozen Puzzle: Hour of Code (Ages 8-10)
Starwars Javascript Puzzle: Hour of Code (Ages 11+)
My First Website: CoderDojo Sushi Card HTML/CSS (Ages 8-12)
Intermediate HTML/CSS: CoderDojo Sushi Card (Ages 9-13)
codecademy.com also provides free resources suitable for older girls
8Created by the CoderDojo Foundaon 2017
For more see our website www.coderdojo.com or join the discussion at forums.coderdojo.com
