What is a good curriculum or way to teach a child (age 11) programming?

I'm looking for a program, video series website or something that makes understanding the fundamentals of programming fun and interesting. I'd rather not spend a fortune in case they lose interest. If possible, it would be good to learn a useful program language.





Any suggestions?

What is a good curriculum or way to teach a child (age 11) programming?
Batch files are a great place to start.





These are actually text files which list programs you want to run sequentially, set up conditions where you want to run them or not, and send them or receive variables. In Unix and Linux they are called Shell Scripts. I have linked to a batch file introduction/tutorial, and might mention that around 1990 I played a very funny adventure game which was nothing more than a batch file.





After that I would go for an old-fashioned interpreted language. Basic was great because you could learn the syntax by entering commands in immediate mode, and the computer would execute them or fail right away. Some Basic interpreters are still available (RealBasic is a basic compiler which has an attached interpreter and it's free for this sort of use). Python does exactly the same thing as well: except it needs you to import libraries.





Then he or she could go for a compiled language, and Pascal is a language which was designed to teach programming.
Reply:List I'm providing you is best way to teach or setting feet of children to program a computer. You can start without any doubt.





1. First step should be introduction of computers, internet, websites and programming.





2. After understanding the basics concepts, start with HTML. Take a book, which visually teach HTML. That way, child will develop coding concept. After finishing the HTML course, you must start JavaScript to build logic because by HTML, one can design the layout but interactive thing.


JavaScript is easy and attractive to setting feet on programming.





After finishing JavaScript child will must develop basics concepts of programming such, variables, loops, conditions, etc.





Now he can start high level language such Java or C#