🎃 Try This on the Weekend: Claude Code Makes a Trick-or-Treat Route Planner

Time: ~25 minutes
Who: You + your kid (no coding needed)
Goal: Use Claude Code to generate a simple app that plans your Halloween trick-or-treat route.

⚙️ Step 1: Install Claude Code (5 min)

In your terminal copy and paste this:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Then start Claude by typing:

claude

🧠 Step 2: Tell Claude What You Want (5 min)

Copy this this:

“Create a small web app that helps plan our Halloween trick-or-treating route.
I want to type in a list of house addresses, and it should show the best walking order using Google Maps or OpenStreetMap.”

Claude will generate HTML + JavaScript files for you and store them on your computer.

🕸️ Step 3: Run It (5–10 min)

Claude will tell you what files it made (for example: index.html, script.js).
Ask:

“How do I open and test this in my browser?”

It will walk you through double-clicking index.html or running a tiny local web server.
Then, you’ll see your mini “Trick-or-Treat Route Planner” appear in the browser.

🍬 Step 4: Customise It (5 min)

Now have fun with your 12-year-old:

“Add spooky Halloween colours.”
“Make it show a candy emoji for each stop.”
“Add a total walking distance at the end.”
“Make it say ‘🎃 Boo! Time to go!’ when the route is ready.”

Claude will update your code and explain what changed.

🌙 Optional Stretch

Ask:

“Can we add a map preview?”
Claude will use a free API like Leaflet.js to drop pins on a map — and it’ll show you how to get an API key if needed.

🪄 What You’ll Learn

• How natural language turns into a working app

• How Claude explains every step

• That “coding” now means conversation