No! Tynker is a complete online learning system built for educators with no programming experience. Our interactive lessons engage students so they can learn on their own. Camp instructors follow easy-to-use lesson plans with teacher guides and puzzle solutions to lead students through daily activities.

Although no experience with Tynker or programming is required, we recommend hiring instructors with general technology expertise because they can create additional collaborative activities for students to customize your camp. Engineering undergraduate students make excellent instructors.

With initiatives like the Hour of Code, programming is gaining recognition as a crucial 21st century skill. More and more parents see learning to program as a priority for their children. Programming is uniquely suited to a camp environment because it involves both learning and creating, meaning that kids love it and so do their parents!

Over 60 million kids have started learning to code with Tynker. Whether you have a small camp or a large franchise, Tynker easily adapts. Plus, you don’t need to create a curriculum. Tynker is a proven solution for teaching programming that’s trusted by leading camp providers across the country, including Sylvan Learning Centers and iD Tech camps.

Kids love Tynker because they’re learning a skill that can bring their imagination to life. During a week of camp, they can create more than fifty programming projects that they’ll feel proud to share with their family and friends. And, at the end of camp, campers will still maintain access to their projects, so they can continue creating.

Any room with desks and chairs can be used as a Tynker classroom. You need wireless internet access and a computer (laptop, desktop or netbook) with a modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) for every child. Tynker does the rest. Tynker camps are not suited for tablets at this time. However, kids can use the Tynker app for tablets to make games using what they’ve learned at camp.

Almost immediately. Tynker is cloud-based, so there’s nothing to download or install. Once you have a camp administrator account, you can easily add instructors and campers, as well as set up classrooms. It takes less than ten minutes to add all your students and assign lessons.

Tynker’s online lessons allow kids to progress independently at their own pace. This means that you can easily mix kids of different ages and experience levels in one class without boring the advanced students or confusing the beginners. However, we recommend grouping kids by age to encourage collaboration and fun.

We provide you with tips and resources to market your Tynker camp, along with class descriptions, activity schedules, flyers, and copy for your web page. Use our marketing checklist to maximize exposure and enrollments. We also provide referral links on our website to help you get the word out to a broad audience.

Adding funds allows you to enroll students in premium courses. You can add any number of student accounts. And they can even try the sample course C100 without being charged, so that your funds are only used when a student accesses a premium course for the first time.

As soon as you apply funds, you will immediately have access to eight courses, the admin dashboard, multi-location support, automatic student assessment, and more.

Tynker programming camp is best suited for camps or after-school providers with at least 10 students. At this time, we are unable to support smaller providers. However, these credits don’t expire, so you can use them across multiple years.