Workshops
What kids actually do
These are the shared programs, not every local session. A Code Ninjas dojo or a Snapology center repeats the same curriculum. Listing every class since each company opened would be thousands of near-copies. What matters for a companion is the session: the tool in front of the child, and the thing they are trying to finish.
Code Ninjas
Ages 7–14 · Weekly belts at a dojo
Kids build video games on a belt path. White through green belts use Microsoft MakeCode Arcade: sprites, sequences, events, functions, loops, and variables, in blocks. Later belts turn those same ideas into JavaScript. The black-belt capstone is an original MakeCode game the child plans, codes, playtests, and explains. After that, ages about 11–14 can build a game in Unity with C# or Godot with GDScript. Each belt is a run of short guided steps, then an Adventure Project a Code Sensei reviews.
JR is ages 5–7 · Camps are a separate week
JR is a visual curriculum with no reading. The company does not publish the lesson list. Camp weeks are drop-off days built around a theme — AI projects, robotics, 3D printing, Roblox, or Minecraft — rather than the next belt.
theCoderSchool
From about age 7 · One hour, two kids to one coach
There is no single lesson plan. A coach and the child pick a project. Beginners (Roots) use Scratch or Snap! and practice sequence, logic, variables, loops, and conditionals. The next stage (Trunk) is typed Python or JavaScript, often a game or a web page. Further on (Branches) the same child might touch AI, an API, or a 3D engine such as Unity. Most of the hour is the child coding that project, not watching a lesson.
Multi-day · Minecraft uses Education Edition
Minecraft campers code an agent inside the world with Code Builder. Depending on the room, that is MakeCode, Tynker, JavaScript, or Python. They leave with loops, variables, and functions, plus a build they can walk around. Other camps follow the same pattern on a different project.
Snapology
Ages 4–14 · A class is one build
Kids build with LEGO and then make the model do something. Younger rooms (KinderBots, RoboPets) build a simple model and try pseudo-code. Middle rooms add gears, motors, and sensors, including Cubelets. Older rooms, such as Real World Robotics, build alarm devices, earthquake detectors, and robotic arms, and program them. A session is build, test, change, and sometimes a short match. Locations pick from this menu. They do not each invent a curriculum.
iD Tech
Ages 7–17 · One course per week, ending in a project
A week is one course, not a tour of every subject. Younger campers design a Minecraft or Roblox game, or take Coding 101. Ages 10–12 write Python, mod Minecraft, code Roblox in Lua, model for a 3D printer in Blender, or build a VEX robot for a BattleBots-style week. Teens go further: Python with AI agents, Unity in C#, Unreal Engine, MIT App Inventor, or a machine-learning project. The week ends with something they can show.
Bricks 4 Kidz
About ages 5–12 · An hour, or 60–90 minutes in a school
The hour has three beats: a short talk about the model, a build from the company’s own plans, then play. Themes rotate through animals, space, transportation, simple machines, inventions, and energy. Models are often motorized, so kids meet gears, axles, pulleys, and friction by making something move. Robotics adds a program: WeDo with drag-and-drop icons from about age 7, and Mindstorms EV3 from about age 9. A school workshop is the same shape, compressed into one model. Camps repeat it across a theme week such as space, amusement parks, or movie making.
FIRST LEGO League
Explore ages 6–10 · Challenge ages 9–16 · A season, not a drop-in class
Explore teams study the rainforest. Across meetings they build a tree, animals, and research tools from LEGO, then motorize parts with SPIKE Essential: an animal alarm, a treehouse, a lift, a research device. They keep an engineering notebook and present a poster and a team model at a festival. Challenge teams design and code a SPIKE Prime robot, then run it at 15 biodiversity missions in 2.5-minute matches. They also pick a real biodiversity problem and present a solution. Every U.S. team this season is on this same brief.
Camp Invention
Grades K–6 · The modules change every summer
Each day starts with a team game, then two morning builds and two afternoon builds. A module is about eight hours across the week. In the 2026 week, Space Morphers had kids build a rocket, race a rover, grow a crystal tree, and make a planet model. Make Waves had them design an ocean product, pitch it, and fill out a mock patent. The Infringers had them sketch a fix for a community problem and add a light to a wearable while trying security ideas such as iris recognition. Next summer replaces the four modules. The shape of the day stays.
Girls Who Code
Grades 3–12 · About 45 minutes, after school or online
Grades 3–5 pick from a menu. An AI unit is 10 sessions on patterns, training a model, and careful use, with Teachable Machine and unplugged games. Two shorter units use BlockJam, a drag-and-drop editor, for coding and a small game. A book club ties chapters to an unplugged or online challenge. Grades 6–12 follow tutorials in Scratch, Python, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, or Thunkable, covering loops, variables, conditions, and functions, then build one project that answers a problem the group cares about.
Tutoring, beside the work
A practice hour, not a build
These are not workshops with a shared project. A child sits with a custom set of problems — math at Mathnasium and Kumon, reading and math at Sylvan and Huntington — and an instructor checks the work. A companion here is next to practice, not next to a robot or a game.