I recently heard about a programming language developed at MIT called Scratch. According to the website (http://scratch.mit.edu/), “Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.” [more]
The Scratch programming language makes the syntax easy for kids by using a building block method. There is also an option to share programs via the Internet. I am not sure what kind of content controls are in place when sharing programs, so be careful with the kids on that one.
Scratch even has the ability to incorporate physical sensors into its programs using a circuit board you can purchase from them. Anyway, this is one of the better kid-friendly programming environments I’ve seen, so I thought I would pass it along for those of you with young ones.