Zahra Manifests Her Imagination Through Code!

7-year-old Zahra from Pennsylvania likes making and reading comic books! (Her favorite is Captain Underpants.) When she grows up she’d like to be an illustrator, a paleontologist, and a developer. She loves Minecraft and would be really happy to intern with them someday! When she’s not doing schoolwork and showing her cyber classmates how to code, Zahra’s coding, drawing, or playing Minecraft! Her favorite school subjects are science and reading. We had the chance to talk with Zahra and her mom, Diane, to learn more about how Zahra manifests her knowledge of science and animals through her coding projects! Fun Fact about Zahra: Her favorite animal is the peacock!

How have your coding skills improved since you started coding with Tynker? Well, every time I code I start to learn new things, like variables.

What tutorials or courses did you use when you started out with Tynker?  Dragon Dash, it was hard for me when I was five years old.

What is one of your favorite projects? “Make a Gingerbread Man”!

“Make a Gingerbread Man”

How do you get inspiration for your projects? I mostly get inspiration from very good coders, sometimes I look in the code to see how it works. I’m making an upcoming game called “Bird Dress-up.” A dress up game where you dress up the bird and can add a background. There will be a blue duck, who’s dancing for no reason, and he has a big mohawk!

Why do you like to code? Because sometimes when I code it gives me ideas, like what to add to it. I can add different characters! I’m also working on a bird dress-up makeup project!

Do you have a favorite code block? “On-start”!

What is your favorite thing about Tynker? Every time you code, it’s like magic! The things come to life.

How do you think learning to code has prepared you for the future? I think when I start to code, I’ll be ready like my dad. He’s a very good coder, very advanced.

Do you think other kids should learn to code? Yeah, because I like to see what they make.

Diane, Zahra’s mom, shared with us her perspective on Zahra’s coding endeavors: “I think it’s exciting, because she’s so excited about it. I think there are so many other skills you learn while coding, like math, and reading. When you code, you really have to spell it right, so I think it’s good training for her to work on [spelling].”

Diane and Zahra have found that coding can be interdisciplinary! That’s why, instead of doing a traditional poster to demonstrate learning, they work together to create interactive projects that Zahra’s classmates and teachers love: “We try to code an app, to get the same information. She had to do an assignment where she had to make a nature preserve for elephants. (Zahra adds: “I made a timeline and when you click on the answer, the elephant becomes an elephant from the past.”) We use Tynker to make these projects for her school. It’s still like a poster, you have graphics and we write things out, but it’s more interactive, and people enjoy it more. You can bring in almost any subject. Her teacher wants Zahra to come in and teach a class on coding and things like that. Her classmates love it. She always tells them to get on Tynker.”

Learning to code helps Zahra with school subjects now and is also preparing her for the future, according to Diane: “I think her spelling will improve. I definitely see her combining her skills. I think she’s going to do educational app development, where she does the development and the illustration, for a product where kids learn about dinosaurs, because that’s her passion. She loves Minecraft, so hopefully she can intern there, or something!”

We can’t wait to see what opportunities coding leads you to, Zahra! Thanks for interviewing with us, Diane and Zahra, and happy coding!