PathPals — for grown-ups
PathPals gives children ages 5–8 the earliest foundations of computational thinking — sequencing, directionality, loops, and debugging — in the pre-reader coding tradition of ScratchJr and Bee-Bot. Children choose the set of picture-commands that guides a friend to the goal, then watch it run and fix it if it misses.
What your child practices
- First Step — putting steps in order to reach the goal (with Steppa).
- Which Way? — turning left or right to navigate a bend (with Twirl).
- Again & Again — using a loop to repeat a step (with Loopy).
- Fix It — finding and fixing the step that made a path fail (with Roami).
- Where Will It Go? — reading a path and predicting where the friend stops.
- If This, Then That — Roami walks until it reaches a gem, then follows the rule card (a first "if").
- Keep Going! and Count As You Go — repeating until something happens, and counting along the way.
- Build a Path — making a path of your own, running it, and changing one move when it misses.
Every puzzle shows the friend walking the path you chose, so a wrong pick is a chance to see where it went and try again — the plan-run-debug loop at the heart of computer science. Audio-first, big buttons, no timers, no pressure.
Play it at recess
The same ideas work with no screen at all. Print this card for a playground game of “Mother, may I?”: children call out the moves, and one child walks them on a chalk grid.
Privacy promise
PathPals runs entirely on this device. There are no accounts, no ads, and no third-party tracking. Nothing your child does leaves the device — progress is saved only in this browser.