Parents' Guide to

Lightbot Jr : Coding Puzzles for Ages 4+

By D T, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 6+

Colorful, engaging intro to programming for young kids.

Lightbot Jr :  Coding Puzzles for Ages 4+ Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this app.

Community Reviews

age 4+

Based on 1 parent review

age 4+

Simple, fun, effective, not overly stimulating, no adds or in app purchases

I love this app! I have a mathy 5 year old (both parents are computer scientists) and I felt it was a great introduction to procedural thinking and computer programming. Yes it was easy for him, but he still learned something and he really enjoyed it. I probably could have started him on the non jr version. I loved having the option of starting him on one I knew he'd do well at though, since this was his first iPad app. I think he had fun, it wasn't graphically overstimulating or distracting and he did learn to break problems down into smaller problems, etc. I like that you can turn the music on or off. As a female software engineer, I love that there is a boy or girl robot you can pick - yay! The navigation between levels, etc was very clean. All in all, a pretty simple, well done app. Loved it. This is the same kind of learning you get from a game like Robot Turtles or Kodable. I'm sure for simplification purposes, but it's interesting that the recursive functions have no stop condition. Stack overflow!

This title has:

Easy to play/use

Privacy Rating Warning

  • Unclear whether personal information is sold or rented to third parties.
  • Unclear whether personal information are shared for third-party marketing.
  • Unclear whether this product displays personalised advertising.
  • Unclear whether data are collected by third-parties for their own purposes.
  • Unclear whether this product uses a user's information to track and target advertisements on other third-party websites or services.
  • Unclear whether this product creates and uses data profiles for personalised advertisements.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1 ):
Kids say: Not yet rated

As a puzzle game, Lightbot Jr is cheerful and fun. Littler kids will find the basic graphics appealing and the drag-and-drop programming a breeze. As the game progresses, some of the concepts may slip past the beginner and require some explaining. And the harder puzzles require long sequences of steps that may baffle even the adult partner. As kids get better at the game, they will have learned many of the basic concepts of procedural thinking. But, without follow-up, Lightbot offers only a taste of what programming is like.

App Details

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