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How about Phun?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H5g9VS0ENM

If you clicked on the download link on the website, you'd find there are versions for Mac OSX and Linux as well.

Don't forget the excellent Phun physics sim. Check out some of the things that are possible.. the standard environment is powerful enough to support rockets and springs, but it's also fully scriptable.

It is not programming, but Phun is a good 2-D physics simulator for kids.

Another that takes a bit more work is Google's Sketchup with the SketchyPhysics plugin.

It's been done in Phun, a physic 2D sandbox

http://www.phunland.com/phunbox/details/22598

Is this the game/level-version of Phun? ( http://www.phunland.com/wiki/Home ) Which is a very similar simulation, but instead in a sandbox format.

Here's a couple radical ideas ~_*
Keep letting elementary school kids play w/ Logo. Those who are hooked will quickly move all by themselves to other programming languages.
Expose kids at all levels to things like phun .
And most important: ban use of PowerPoint in all schools at all levels. 'nuff said on that one.

As others have posted, learning to design algorithms is useful; learning any specific programming language is far less so. I'd go so far as to suggest that the rules laid down in Geometry class may be of great use for budding programmers. Geo students are (or at least they are in the Honors levels) taught to write down every step in the proof, along with a justification (theorem, definition, etc) for each step. That's the first lesson in algorithm development.

Have you considered Phun Physics ( http://www.phunland.com/wiki/Home )? It's a 2D environment where you can build "machines" a little similar to The Incredible Machine, but obeying many physical laws. So far, everyone who has seen the demo video, from my 4-year old son to some Ph.D. educated friends, has fallen in love with it :o)