Take a look at this middle school class project idea that blends learning programming with project management and business development.

We got a lot of mileage out of dissecting "Flappy Bird" in my app building classes this summer with SEP that made for a fun, relevant programming exercise. And even better, that we used an app building platform, App Inventor, that allows you to publish your project on Google Play, like this class did.

Right now, I'm working with a 7th grader incorporating 3 programming platforms to create a Kickstarter type fund raising campaign, using Blogger, Scratch (to embed an animation "video" within Blogger) and MS Publisher to create a donor reward (customized art calendar that meets a donation threshold). Keeping it real keeps it happening ;)