So your kid claims to want to be the world’s next great digital animator? Here are a few good packages they can practice with. These will give them a breadth of exposure to basic programming, game design and web applications.

Alice is a cinematic package custom designed for youngsters to get their feet wet with animation. It’s also used as a beginning programming course in computer science departments on college campuses around the country. Alice has pre-made characters, structures and backgrounds and allows you to make short films. You can practice with perspective, camera positions and lighting. The program allows you to move action segments around to get the desired sequence of motion. You can lift the hood and see the Java language styled programming methods that make it all happen and customize the commands in greater detail.

RoboCode is a fun gaming design package also designed on a Java platform. It gives you good practice with gaming logic presenting different scenarios that you can customize with your own programmed battle tank. Actually a kid can design a bunch of tanks and orchestrate his own battle game.

Adobe’s famed Flash is used by graphic designers and animators alike. You may see a Flash app as part of web site or a one fully designed in Flash. There’s a good chance you’ll see animated graphics used in commercial advertising. It’s more pricey as a professional package but as your child develops their skills it’s really easy to pick up on.

Another respected Adobe product is DreamWeaver, a dedicated web design package. If your youngster already has a penchant for web design and have a basic knowledge of HTML and Cascading Style Sheets they should be to adapt to DreamWeaver relatively easily. Try the free trail version and see how they like it before buying.

And speaking of web sites, now is a good time for your kids to begin working a web site to show their talents. Not only will this develop into a portfolio for entrance into a college program it will serve as great advertising for consulting. And who’s to say he or she won’t pay their way through college and graduate into their own business?