12 Coding Activities for Kids Who Love Art
While we generally think of coding as a way to build technology, did you know it can also be a medium for making art and expressing creativity? Take Ian Spalter, former head of design at Instagram and current head of Instagram Japan. In an interview for 28 Days of Black Designers, Spalter said he “grew up playing with Legos, drawing, and doing old-school programming on a Commodore 64.” From there, he was inspired by multimedia classes and industrial design—the two eventually coming together to spark his career building creative user experiences for large scale platforms.
Luckily, there are now a plethora of projects that merge coding and creativity for young people. Below, we’ve compiled some of our favorite art-inspired activities on Code.org for kids of all ages!
Grades 2+
Kano Art Playground: Use block code to draw a scene, then bring it to life with animation and mouse interaction. Code your own paintbrushes, add stickers, and get creative!
The Little Artist In Your Computer Activity Pack (Unplugged!) This PDF contains a fun story embedded with puzzles that will teach your students the fundamentals of digital art as they make their own creations using pixels, algorithms and repeat loops.
RoboGarden STEAM - Art: RoboGarden STEAM has fused coding practice with STEAM learning and gamified missions in multiple activities. In the art activity, the student will understand color mixing concepts while using coding blocks to solve challenges in the birthday party.
Grades 6+
Code Your Self-Portrait: Learn to program your portrait using p5.js. Express yourself creatively through code by incorporating your favorite artistic styles and personal touches to create a true masterpiece!
Design Your Own Logo: Use code to get creative and design your own company logo! You'll learn coding basics in the programming language, Python. After you work through the tutorial, you'll have all the skills you need to create the logo for your personal brand.
Digital Art in Pixels with CodeHS: Learn how images are stored and displayed on computers using pixels. Explore how images are encoded as a grid of color values, and make your own digital images using binary and hexadecimal color codes!
Khan Academy: Drawing with Code: Learn how to program drawings using JavaScript by designing your very own snowman. Try it on your own or with your class!
Grades 9+
Interactive Art: Bringing Art to Life with Code: Learn to draw and animate shapes with code to create interactive artwork inspired by artists.
Filter a Photo: Love editing photos for social media? Learn coding skills to create filters to apply to different photos.
Generating Art with Code: Memes! Memes! Memes! Students explore the intersection of coding and art by building a computer program that allows them to create custom memes to share with friends.
Options for All Ages
Check out the Code.org art studio—for beginner coders here and more experienced ones here.