Check out the book Python for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Programming. It covers how to make a couple different 2D games.

http://www.amazon.com/Python-Kids-Playful-Introduction-Progr...

Yep. Looks like it. And from @danjoc's comment, the book in question "Python for Kids" has been uploaded to google drive by someone and it's out there...

This was (and still is) 1 major factor holding me back from trying to publish a technical book. They are so easily pirated.

The rhymes and illustrations look great! Is there a board book edition?

Other great STEM and computers books for kids:

"A is for Array"

"Lift-the-Flap Computers and Coding"

"Computational Fairy Tales"

"Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding"

"Python for Kids: A Playful Introduction To Programming"

"Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things"

"Rosie Revere, Engineer"

"Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine"

"HTML for Babies: Volume 1 of Web Design for Babies"

"What Do You Do With a Problem?"

"What Do You Do With an Idea?"

"ABCs of Mathematics",
"The Pythagorean Theorem for Babies",
"Non-Euclidian Geometry for Babies",
"Introductory Calculus for Infants",
"ABCs of Physics",
"Statistical Physics for Babies",
"Netwonian Physics for Babies",
"Optical Physics for Babies",
"General Relativity for Babies",
"Quantum Physics for Babies", "Quantum Information for Babies", "Quantum Entanglement for Babies"

"ELI5": "Explain like I'm five"

Someone should really make a list of these.

I recommend "Python for Kids" from O'reilly

I would start with something less abstract, more concrete to start. I have a 4 year old who picked up the ability to program this simple mouse to navigate the maze and find the cheese. If I try to go too abstract, you can see the eyes glazing over.

I was at a steam fair last weekend, and they had the OhBot, a programmable robot face, on display. It is programmed with what appeared to be a version of Scratch. You could control the head, mouth, and eyes with the track pad and keys. Kids were really into that and there was quite a line at that table.

Thinkfun also has a good board game to teach programming logic called Code Master Programming Logic Game.

If you really do want to go a more abstract route, I would start with the Python for Kids book by Jason Briggs. Once he gets through that, get the Python Crash Course next and work through the 3 problems in that book. It has one where you make a Django app with a user login.

I just started down the path to learn web development a week ago (after procrastinating it for years). My only prior programming experience was some BASIC and Pascal lessons I took in primary school and a bit of self-taught HTML.

I find codecademy.com to be a fun and well structured way to learn Python. To me it may well replace the "Python for Kids" book recommended in your blog post since codecademy is free and provides instant feedback on exercises (best way to keep the motivation high!). After completing the codecademy course I'll definitely get myself a proper book to learn the language in more depth.

One thing I'm struggling with is to find mini-projects that I can build and practice with as I learn more codes. As a beginner I may come up with a mini-project idea without realising how big the project can get to or the level of skill is required. If you could suggest a few project ideas with incremental difficulty as well as novel ways for a beginner to think about programming would be really helpful.

To me the most valuable part of your blog post was mapping out the Python > SQL > HTML/CSS > framework learning path. This was another question I had in mind ("what's next after Python?") because as a beginner I really had no big picture view of what skills I need to acquire. So thanks heaps for writing up the post and I look forward to reading your follow-up!