The Adafruit Circuit Playground Express is one of my favorite boards to use with students. It is well designed and rugged and has enough sensors and components on it to be almost all you need for an introductory course in Arduino boards and for many, many projects. It has the option to be coded using Microsoft Makecode, the Arudino IDE, and even CircuitPython. Below are notes to get started and productive with the CPE.
Using MakeCode