✈️ 30 hours to get here. Mateo spent half of them on an AI coding course.

Happy Sunday folks!

​

Writing this from Colombia, where we landed five days ago after a 30-hour journey. We missed our connecting flight in Panama (great fun for my wife and me with the 3 kids in tow!). Mateo spent a good chunk of the delay working through a coding course I'd set him as a holiday challenge.

​

​

In this week's email:

​

• ✈️ The coding challenge I gave Mateo for our four weeks in Colombia
• 🔧 WordLab got harder (by popular request) and got a new lick of paint
• ⚡ Anthropic launched two new Claude models...then the US government stepped in

​

✈️ Scratch, HTML, Python: a four-week coding challenge

​

The course is "Coding for Kids: Code in Scratch, HTML, Python & AI + More" on Udemy, made by Craig Blewett (a computer science PhD) and his son Joshua, who co-created it as a kid.

​

A father-son course, watched by a father and his son on the other side of the world. The challenge I set Mateo (8): finish all video lectures (~11 hours) and projects before we fly home from Colombia in four weeks.

​

​

He is already halfway through. The 30-hour journey here helped with Mateo spending a good chunk of the delay in Scratch building his first game.

​

The pattern that works: watch a short video, close the tab, open Scratch and build what you just learned. He found a bug in his dragonfly chase game and called me over to look at it. Not to fix it, just to look.

​

The AI angle is real too. The course covers AI alongside Python, and kids who understand how code actually works are far better placed to make sense of what AI is doing behind the scenes. This is the foundation.

​

👉 Coding for Kids on Udemy — under €12 with the discount applied.

​

🔧 WordLab got harder (by popular request)

​

​

A few of you, or really your kids, left feedback saying the games were too easy. One actually typed "make it harder." So that is what I did this week.

​

Every game now has three levels: Ages 5-7, 8-10, or 11+. Higher levels use longer words, harder clues, and a bigger grid.

​

In "Who Am I" the 11+ level gives one tricky clue instead of three easy ones. Your 6-year-old and your 11-year-old can play the same topic, each at the right challenge. I also cleaned up the look and feel, and every topic now gets its own icon.

​

Over 5,400 games played since launch two months ago 😱, which still surprises me every time I check. Free, no signup, works on whatever your kid is into.

​

👉 Try it at aitoolsforkids.com/wordlab. Type a topic, pick a level, and let them loose.

​

⚡ Anthropic launched two new Claude models. Then the US government suspended them.

On 9 June, Anthropic released Claude Fable 5 (built for interactive storytelling and game creation) and Claude Mythos 5. Three days later a US government directive forced Anthropic to suspend access to both.

​

Neither is currently available and no detailed explanation has been given. The core Claude models (the ones most parents use) are unaffected.

​

I also published an answer to one of the most common questions I get - why Claude says it is for users 18 and over, and what that actually means for parents. The short version: less dramatic than it sounds.

​

Hope the week is good wherever you are. I'll report back on the coding challenge.

​

Niall (AI Dad Lab)

​

---

P.S. If your kid has done a coding course and you'd recommend it, hit reply. Curious what's working for other families.