I will second p5/processing as a fun tool. It's really a pretty easy and way to get into generative art. P5.js has an online editor which makes it easy.
The new nature of code book was updated to use p5 instead of processing and a fun way to start. As is the "coding train videos" which are interesting in the seem for kids but cover more advanced topics..
What software tools are used for this sort of work?
I'm aware of/have tried:
- Processing (as well as processing.py)
- Nodebox
- OpenSCAD (and its derivative PythonSCAD which allows using Python in it)
EDIT: and METAPOST/Asymptote/TikZ which I forgot to mention
What other tools would folks recommend?