[giraffe_lady]

Check out the bbc microbit, it's intended for exactly this. It has an array of leds, a couple buttons, some useful sensors. Web-based graphical editor based on scratch (visual programming language targeting kids) that smoothly transitions to python if you outgrow it.

This will avoid potentially a lot of frustrating code-adjacent things that professional programmers and serious hobbyists will be used to. In my experience teaching programming to beginners, you want to get them actually making changes to the thing as quickly as you can with as little friction as possible. Things like soldering, library dependencies, build process are all things to avoid at the beginning.

[clifdweller]

One great thing is it was designed to be used in primary school for kids in the uk so has a large amount of lessons to follow along with https://microbit.org/teach/lessons/