Drag and drop visual programming. Its good for kids because it allows them to quickly create things that they're used to seeing/using (graphics, animations, sounds), but still uses real programming concepts.
At 5 you're going to have to sit with her and help guide her on concepts, but she'll pick it up quick.
Edit: Err, 5th grade, I see, not 5yo... sorry.
I would love some recommendations for programming languages + runtimes that you install with one click and immediately have at your disposal a decent language + IDE without weird quirks together with good graphics and sound primitives. I don't think this should be specifically for kids. It should simply be free of ridiculous language issues (PHP and JavaScript are out) and ridiculous runtime issues (managing a thousand and one libraries). Then it will be as good for kids as for adults (as if there was some magic gap between them!) willing to prototype. Actually, I think it is a great project idea, the few existing projects that target this are not all that great I believe.
My six year old just started with Blockly, which is similar to Scratch:
http://blockly-demo.appspot.com/static/apps/turtle/en.html
But we're going to try http://kidsruby.com/ as soon as he's got enough written language under his belt. Probably will work great for a 5th grader though.
StarLogo TNG is similar to Scratch, perhaps a little bit less intuitive, but it's 3-D and lets you do some pretty cool stuff. I'm a bit biased, because I worked on StarLogo TNG, but not biased enough that I won't admit that Khan Academy has by far the best programming tool for kids I've seen so far. I can't say enough good things about it.
http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/Description/teaching...
http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/Description/learning...
I've gone through most of the lessons and while they do a really good job of breaking coding concepts down into real world scenarios involving dogs and tennis balls.
I think they also provide live chat based help if you pay extra.
I posted about it a few days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5466311
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZUNhviJLr8
We will be releasing at the end of April.
There are some programs for kids or to make games for various languages:
Java - Greenfoot
Python - Invent Your Own Computer Games (book)
Ruby - Hackety-Hack, Ruby4Kids
Javascript - CodeAvengers
If they're not yet ready to write real code, they can look at these programs from MIT:
General - Scratch
Android - AppInventor
We're also creating a curriculum to integrate it directly in elementary schools.
Email me if you'd like a coupon code for the IAP (jon at surfscore)
Also, +1 recommendation for Scratch.
If you're somewhere else, definitely take a look at http://coderdojo.com/ and see if there is any Dojo near you.
Awesome idea. What languages do you teach?
We've taught everything from CSS to HTML to JS to Scratch to AppInventor (Android App Dev). We welcome kids from 7 - 17 yrs old (and their parents of course).
They teach kids to code games in Python. Last summer was very successful.
It teaches HTML/CSS thru visual exercises and games.
