Coding iPhone apps for Kids [Greg Laden's Blog]

I can’t give this a meaningful review because I don’t have the setup to test it out, Coding iPhone Apps for Kids: A playful introduction to Swift by Gloria Winquist and Matt McCarthy looks like it is up to the high standards of this publisher and these authors, and might be just the thing for your kid:

Apple’s Swift is a powerful, beginner-friendly programming language that anyone can use to make cool apps for the iPhone or iPad. In Coding iPhone Apps for Kids, you’ll learn how to use Swift to write programs, even if you’ve never programmed before.

You’ll work in the Xcode playground, an interactive environment where you can play with your code and see the results of your work immediately! You’ll learn the fundamentals of programming too, like how to store data in arrays, use conditional statements to make decisions, and create functions to organize your code—all with the help of clear and patient explanations.

Once you master the basics, you’ll build a birthday tracker app so that you won’t forget anyone’s birthday and a platform game called Schoolhouse Skateboarder with animation, jumps, and more!

As you begin your programming adventure, you’ll learn how to:

Build programs to save you time, like one that invites all of your friends to a party with just the click of a button!

Program a number-guessing game with loops to make the computer keep guessing until it gets the right answer

Make a real, playable game with graphics and sound effects using SpriteKit

Challenge players by speeding up your game and adding a high-score system

Why should serious adults have all the fun? Coding iPhone Apps for Kids is your ticket to the exciting world of computer programming.

Covers Swift 3.x and Xcode 8.x. Requires OS X 10.11 or higher.

Example Page:

TOC:

Author Bio
Gloria Winquist became hooked on iOS development in 2011 and has been programming professionally ever since. She works as an iOS developer at LumiraDx.

Matt McCarthy has released more than 20 apps as part of a two-person team, Tomato Interactive LLC. He works as a software engineer at LumiraDx.

Table of contents
PART 1: Xcode and Swift
Chapter 1: Hello, World!
Chapter 2: Learning to Code in a Playground
Chapter 3: Making Choices
Chapter 4: Writing Code That Loops
Chapter 5: Keeping Your Programs Safe with Optionals
Chapter 6: Storing Collections in Dictionaries and Arrays
Chapter 7: Functions Are a Party, and You’re Invited
Chapter 8: Custom Classes and Structs

PART 2: Birthday Tracker
Chapter 9: Creating Buttons and Screens on the Storyboard
Chapter 10: Adding a Birthday Class and Handling User Input
Chapter 11: Displaying Birthdays
Chapter 12: Saving Birthdays
Chapter 13: Getting Birthday Notifications

PART 3: Schoolhouse Skateboarder
Chapter 14: Setting the Stage
Chapter 15: Making Schoolhouse Skateboarder a Real Game
Chapter 16: Using the SpriteKit Physics Engine
Chapter 17: Adjusting Difficulty, Collecting Gems, and Keeping Score
Chapter 18: Game State, Menus, Sound, and Special Effects