Obviously you’ll want to start with absolute basics like mouse and keyboard navigation.

Beyond that? Maybe something involving a ‘treasure hunt’ to learn about navigating files and folders, renaming files, and copying vs. moving them.

Anecdotally, I’ve heard lots of kids coming up now really struggle with the concept of file systems, so it’s definitely something worth teaching early.

Really depends on what they're into in general, but if they show interest in coding, I'd recommend Scratch. It's a coding platform made (primarily) for kids, I got really into it once, and still tinker with it sometimes. I'd say that Scratch is easy to learn, hard to master, and fun.

You could do what my dad did and accidently delete some of the system files, leaving it for your kid to fix.

The reason I want my children to have access to a computer specifically, is that while TVs and phones are used to consume, computers are used to create.

Joking aside, that's an interesting perspective. I hadnt really thought of it that way before, despite using a computer to create things almost every day.

You could install something like LMMS and let them experiment with making their own music (without needing recording equipment or learning real instruments yet).

• Editing a text file (I guess writing a story has that covered?)

• Deleting a program (I did not know how to remove programs for the longest time as a kid… this was on windows, mind you. I figured just deleting the desktop icon was all it took. Oops.)

• Changing display resolution and scale (Really just poking around the accessibility menu in general is valuable, lots of useful stuff even for someone with good vision etc.)

Does your kid like minecraft? Make a game with them on the minetest/luanti engine. For a base game you can use Minetest Game or a minecraft clone like Mineclonia and follow this modding book. Have the kid make 16x16px textures in gimp and you can rtegister some modded blocks Its as easy as this:

minetest.register_node("default:stone", { description = S("Stone"), tiles = {"default_stone.png"}, groups = {cracky = 3, stone = 1}, drop = "default:cobble", legacy_mineral = true, sounds = default.node_sound_stone_defaults(), })

https://www.luanti.org/en/

https://rubenwardy.com/minetest_modding_book/en/index.html

Have him open it up, clean the dust, and put it back together again.

Honestly give them Minecraft and let them loose on that. For a 7yo that's a great challenge.

You can make an image of the / drive so it's easier to restore if they break the system.

I you can slowly teach them to use the command line, if they can read fluently using the cli shouldn't be that hard. You can teach them the basic commands, and teach them to install a program with apt.

Also, you said write a short story? The teach them vim (or emacs if you prefer that).

You can install vmpk (or some other music keyboard emulation program) so they can play some music. And if they get more interested get them LMMS and later ardour + advanced stuff.

Krita is a super nice program to draw, and colour (tho no fun without a drawing tablet), maybe you can teach them vectorial drawing on inkscape. And if they like it then install Blender and go 3D.

Those tasks sound simple enough :3

Could also throw in things like take a screenshot, or file navigation. If they've not used a computer knowing where to find things will come in handy

My kids have Raspberry Pi 400s (which I ought to upgrade to 500s, as they complain about them being too slow).

I think those specifically are a good choice for this use-case because they come with a big (physical, paper!) book that teaches kids all sorts of stuff that can be done with them.

If you can figure out how to get it all running, there used to be a lot of really good edu-tainment software in the 90s.

• Zoombinis
• The Incredible Machine
• Etc

Scratch (programming suite) or ScratchJR to start

Tobbie2 robot (STEM focus, build the robot and then program the BBC micro:bit board inside)

GCompris - educational games

Anki - flashcard based learning, of many downloadable topics(whatever their interests are)

Ktuberling - Mr Potatohead, scene creator

Powdertoy - Falling sand sandbox physics program. Can be fun(TNT) or serious, plenty of downloadable creations like: nuclear reactor, steam turbine, car(ICE) etc

Break the system so hard that you need to reinstall the system.

Blender is cool but without a lot of guidance it is impossible to use. Blockbench is easier, and they could figure out how to put their creation inside Minecraft.

Pivot animator but it would need to run under wine/proton

Make a song, I would look into bosca ceoil blue and audacity.

Make a short movie

For real this time:

Drag and drop

Copy paste

Select multiple things

Compress and decompress archive

Google something

Find home on the map

Listen to a song.

Send email.

Take a photo with built-in camera and screenshot.

Take a backup

Share a file over the network.

Make terminal go brrrrrr du / (cowsay, lolcat and cmatrix are also fun)

Input an emoji

Change wallpaper, enable wobbly windows and THE CUBE

Maybe something creative, like making a poster in libre office?

I remember when i was 10-ish ms Word 97 was the shit. I liked to use word art to create and print my name and other texts. Children this age like to be creative if you show him a program and let him loose exploring it, he'll learn a lot.

This is a wonderful idea.

Off hand, I would agree with understanding file navigation. I would suggest you make a sort of capture the flag treasure hunt. First round, find the file. Second round, move the file. Third round, rename the file.

Installing and uninstalling apps, including looking at reviews online to see what app is best for drawing, for example. Say the challenge is you can only install 2 apps and can only keep one.

Hour to add and delete bookmarks from the browser.

Good luck with this!

An arduino would pair well and do some pretty cool stuff, maybe motivate them towards coding. They make some Lego compatible projects too. Maybe also typing challenge games or offline only minecraft

take a look at endless os.

https://www.endlessglobal.com/foundation/access/operating-system

specifically, the 'full' install with all the goodies and content 'preinstalled'.

notes from personal experience (i use endless at home): don't be tempted by the ability to install alongside windows and dual boot. it's not optimal by any stretch. that configuration uses windows as the boot manager (windows has to basically boot to get to that menu), and endless and its data is then stored in a loop device (slow, especially with old hdd). do a normal install (use the 'advanced' option in the windows installer to make an 'endless usb stick' then choose the 'full' image). you will need a 64gb flash drive for an english language 'full' installer of the current (6.0.8) version.

gcompris.

Covers:

• keyboard, mouse, and (if appicable) touchscreen use
• geography
• science
• reading
• math
• memory

The challenge sets itself. I recommend starting there - my kids love it.

Find them a program like KidPix and just let them make stuff!

Do you intend to include internet/web surfing, or hold back on that until later?

Search engines can be very useful, while also being awful.

But I do think teaching the kiddo how to navigate the website of your local library would be a good lesson for them.

• Krita is free and awesome for that age. Maybe install it together. If you have a tablet or touch screen, it's really fun.
• How familiar are you with (also free) Blender? You would have to install it and learn the basics. Just the 3d sculpting program might be a blast for him and have him edit a UV sphere. There are a few basic tips to get you going, but kids pick it up way easier than adults do.
  • The object mode is for the overall, individual objects
  • The edit mode is to work on, inside, the object you select
  • You absolutely have to have a scroll mouse
  • There is a description in the lower left corner that lets you edit the mesh you're "adding" or putting in, then it goes away. This messes up a lot of people.
  • At the top are tabs that let you select a layout for Blender for each focus. There is one for sculpting.
  • The upper right has a lot of icons that let you move around the program (solid, see-thru, etc., and perspective. You would have to know this stuff.
  • This video is for you right now if you don't know anything, and for him in a couple of years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOmYInaX-wE
• Have him search Wikipedia on something he loves and to look for the sources.
• Have him look for, speed up if necessary, and learn from youtube tutorials on topics that interest him.

Side note: Affinity (photoshop alternative) just became free, but I think that's too much. Good to know about though.

Ill steal some suggestions I liked from other commenters and add my own.

• Draw a picture
• Write a letter to someone
• Find home on the map and calculate distances to school, grandparents, friends, etc
• Make a simple song
• Design something simple using CAD software (you'd need to find something really simple to learn/use. Someone suggested a program that I assume allows you to design minecraft buildings external to minecraft)

And most importantly for me:

• Research one or several topics. Youd need to do the research yourself beforehand, as well as pick topics you know align roughly with your child's areas of interest, but if they gain the skill of looking up information for themselves and finding the answer, pretty much anything is within their grasp IMO. Maybe set this as the first one so they can apply it for whatever further challenges you set them (extreme example but e.g. "How to create dog in blender" if you set them the task of using blender to design something). On that note, maybe set 2 distinct types of research topics - such as technical tasks and information tasks. What I mean is: "how do i install x, y, z program and use it" would be a technical task in my opinion, whereas something like "why are farmers legally forbidden from replanting seeds from their crops" would be an information task.

Best of luck!

Give them the gentoo install guide.

The first thing I did in Linux was to change my wallpaper/ UI and Icon themes.

Maybe these would be really easy first challenges that a child would look into anyways, to make the system feel like theirs. I remember constantly changing wallpapers when I was a kid. I wonder what I'd had done with the options Linux offered.

Further down the line I'd explain sudo apt update/ upgrade (or equivalent) to them, so they can do some basic maintenance.

Get them the Hello Ruby books, they’re great for that exact age

It's never too early to learn navigating drives and folders using the command line!

Maybe coming up with coded messages? With a code language.

(they don't need to be difficult)

From cmd line, run a game

I'm not sure what's it's like now, but at that age I was just starting to get into visual programming. Using blocks to program. Started getting into Lego robotics. All my computer skills started there.

With Linux I would start them on basic terminal commands. Cat a file. Edit a file. Navigate. Etc.

What was the curriculum you used for them to learn to read?

I learnt as a 5 year old typing stuff into DOS because I wanted to play games on it.

What do your kids want to do at the computer? That drive will make them motivated learners.

A great skill to have in life regsthing computers is typing fast, so give him the challenge to reach a certain wpm

Get an old 486 and have them install doom via discs heh

This might seem a bit "too much", but as a linux user for 20 years, and someone that also is preparing a computer for my niece (she is 4 right now, but I'm going to give it to my brother so that he can decide when the time is right for her), I have to say you should look in to the new Commodore OS (yes; it is the Commodore!). It's a large OS, but it has everything. What you want to do is hide everything that shouldn't be accessible to your children, and that's as easy as right-clicking on "Applications" and unmark any app that shouldn't be visible (this is easy in any distro, but), it also comes with a few "education" apps (see image), that are very good as an introduction to computing. When they get older, you simply mark the apps you want them to have access to. I've used this dist for about 2 month now, and it is extremely stable. There are also other nice things that can help keep things a bit "fun", like the "Cube" (check my profile header for how it can look, it's from my current setup). The cube (in my opinion) is a great visual as to how, for instance, directories and such work; if you have let's say 4 apps open on your desktop, going in to cube mode you can see how they all are as "layers", this just makes sense (to me, at least).

I think you should check it out!

While I like the idea of challenges to get them used to computers, I'd also suggest balancing these with challenges that may help them outside the digital/technological world. Maybe challenge them to write a short story or a letter to their grandparents in cursive. Maybe hand-stitch a running hem, mentally add and subtract numbers, walk a quarter-mile every day. Later on, maybe have them plan out and cook a really simple meal, or do some kind of simple repair or put together a flat-pack table or something. Solder or glue something.

I dunno, it just feels like so many skills aren't being taught to kids and they graduate with little knowledge of skills that make your life easier and less expensive - simple repairs, being able to research stuff, being unafraid to do things on your own. Don't get me wrong, I applaud your kid's drive and your desire to make them ready for the digitally-focused world they'll live in, I just see too many kids graduating and needing a massive amount of hand-holding for even the simplest things.

The thing they used to show kids to try and get us interested in computer programming back when I was in school about a hundred years ago was called Logo. Apparently there's now an online version called LYNX which might be worth a look.

My kid was all in on Tux Paint for a good while.

He eventually settled in to make cars and cats, but at first he just enjoyed making abstract art with all the colors and paintbrushes.

Have you thought of using an Arduino, and let him program little things?

Download a picture from the Internet, move it to the desktop with the file explorer only. Then print it out.