The kid’s grandparents got him an Amazon Fire tablet and I loathe the thing. It teaches literally nothing about computing and the games they have for kids are barely even games, and are more focusing on advertising various IPs.
I’d like to get the kid started, as he learns to read, on something that will be more useful than detrimental, let that soft little brain soak up some actual computer science, literacy. I teach him about basic electrical circuits and how that translates to computing, if, and, or, xor, nor, etc. He’s got some familiar with hex (colors) and the concept of binary (on/off).
But what to get for a first computer? I almost want to get him something Linux based and turn him loose. Is there anything like that, that would require him to learn some command prompt and basic computing skills?
Every time and try and Google it, I get a bunch of crap suggestions and ads.
I’ve recently introduced my 5 year old to Luanti (open source Minecraft clone). He loves it, sees me open terminals (Linux only house), use the in-game terminal which I’m teaching him to use, learns what keys are where etc. and personally I’m OK with that for now. Baby steps.
My own computer route was to play games initially (load “”) then move on to coding later. It is much easier to learn coding now than it was then but just moving him off the tablet will already be a huge win. If he shows an aptitude or interest in it, coderdojo or similar will be waiting.
Oh! If you do decide to do something similar, I hooked the laptop up to the TV with keyboard and mouse and it was a huge win both in fine motor control and fun!
Good luck!