With the end of the school year fast-approaching, you may find yourself looking for things to do with your child that are fun, engaging, and educational. ��As some of you know, I’m a huge fan of tinkering and believe it’s important to incorporate opportunities for tinkering in children’s daily routines. ��I’ve culled the internet and found a number of fantastic activities, challenges, and experiments that may interest (you and) your child. They are all relatively affordable and can be conducted in the comfort of your own home. Please keep in mind that some of these activities require the help and/or supervision of an adult. So break out the cardboard, popsicle sticks, and tape and get ready for some fun!

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This website provides ideas for building several gadgets including pyramid catapults, propeller cars, slingshot rockets, and more!

This blog offers four different engineering challenges that require only popsicle sticks, plastic cups and wooden blocks. ��Test your child to build the tallest structure; build a structure on top of a single wooden block or cup; or balance a number of cups against several blocks. ��The possibilities are endless!

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Learn about ecosystems and aquaponics by creating a mini ecosystem using a soda bottle or mason jar!

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Using household items only, challenge your child to package a raw egg so that it would survive–unscathed and unbroken–when dropped from a great distance.

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Learn about inertia, mass, equilibrium and Newton’s First Law by building inertia towers with blocks, index cards, and string. ��Challenge your child to pull the index cards from the tower without toppling the structure!

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This activity is a DIY version of the classic wooden labyrinth game where the object is to use to move a single marble through the maze without it falling through the holes. ��Help your child construct their own labyrinth made of popsicle sticks and cardboard.

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In this fun experiment, your child will learn about DNA and how to extract it from the inside of their cheek with the help of just a few kitchen ingredients!

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Learn about buoyancy and put your engineering skills to the test by constructing a boat using solely cardboard and tape! ��Here’s the catch: make the boat large enough for you and your child to row across a pool. ��Don’t have a pool? ��Construct a mini version and see how many pennies, wooden blocks, or objects of your choice it takes to sink the boat.

Do you have any favorite activities in your household? ��Feel free to share ideas and resources below!

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Tiffany Kwong graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she received B.A.s in Sociology and Asian American Studies. She then pursued an M.A. in the Social and Cultural Analysis of Education at California State University, Long Beach. She enjoys working behind the scenes and playing a role in all of the programs and services ������Ƶ has to offer and loves the incredibly warm and inclusive spaces ������Ƶ has a way of creating. In her free time, she really enjoys cooking and sewing, especially in the company of family – the experience of spending time with her loved ones makes these activities particularly special to her.

After reading about the Maker movement and Maker Faires, I was reminded of the importance of hands-on learning, making, and tinkering for kids in and outside of the classroom. ��In elementary school, I remember my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Smith, presented our class with the Egg Drop Challenge. ��The rules were simple; using household items, package a raw egg in such a way that if dropped from the roof of a one-story building, it would survive unscathed and unbroken. ��My classmates used all kinds of materials including cardboard boxes, Styrofoam peanuts, bubble wrap, masking tape, drinking straws, pantyhose, and even uncooked rice! ��One by one, we watched from the ground floor as Mr. Smith carelessly flung each of our eggs off of the roof. ��What excitement!

It was such a simple experiment, and yet, so engaging, thrilling, and fun, which brings me back to the importance of learning-through-doing. ��Our current education system relies too heavily on standardized testing and content delivery, and arguably, not enough on project-based and experiential learning. ��However, with the rise of the Maker movement, we are beginning to see schools, libraries, children’s museums, and science museums respond by creating making environments or “makerspaces” and incorporating making and tinkering into their curricula and programs.

But, what is tinkering? ��Tinkering is an approach to making; it is curiosity-driven, it helps us understand how things in our everyday lives work, and inspires us to innovate and “think outside of the box.” ��In their article, ��Resnik and Rosenbaum (2013) define tinkering as:

“A valid and valuable style of working, characterized by a playful, exploratory, iterative style of engaging with a problem or project. ��When people are tinkering, they are constantly trying out ideas, making adjustments and refinements, then experimenting with new possibilities over and over and over. […] Tinkering can be hard work, and sometimes it might not seem like play. ��But there is always a playful spirit underlying the tinkering process.”

For children, the values of tinkering are seemingly endless. ��To start, it can create venues for children to:

1. Think creatively. ��Tinkering encourages children to reimagine everyday items and utilize them in new or uncommon ways. ��Suddenly, those corks from Saturday night are no longer bottle stoppers, but are now floatation devices for a mini boat!
2. Embrace setbacks. ��Tinkering also allows children to learn how to accept unforeseen challenges. ��In fact, those from the Maker movement encourage the celebration of setbacks in their designs and view them simply as drafts or iterations of the final design/product. ��Things do not always work out the way we intended and tinkering gives kids a chance to take risks and develop persistence toward achieving their goals in a safe environment.
3. Problem-solve. ��Along with unplanned challenges, tinkering provides children opportunities to work through their frustrations, think critically about the issue at hand, and confront the challenge. ��If a child’s balloon-powered vehicle does not travel as far as she hypothesized, encourage her to assess why it did not travel farther. ��What worked and what didn’t work? ��What are ways she can adapt or redesign the vehicle to increase its distance? ��Perhaps using materials that are lighter in weight, repositioning key components, or redesigning it completely from a four-wheeled vehicle to a three-wheeled one. ��The possibilities are endless!
4. Take ownership. ��Such opportunities for problem-solving and overcoming obstacles provide venues for children to take ownership of the entire process. ��There is a kind of freedom that comes with tinkering, which allows children to create things from their own imagination, explore their options, make educated decisions, and feel empowered while doing so.
5. Have fun. ��The value of tinkering relies less on the final product than the actual process. ��Learning by doing can be fun and exhilarating especially when it’s driven by designing, creating, refining, testing, and analyzing. ��It creates a connection between imagination and real-world application. ��What can be more rewarding than making your ideas become a reality?

After all, as Make Magazine founder and Maker Faire creator, Dale Dougherty reminds us, “We are all makers.”

Here a couple of TEDTalks to help inspire the tinkerer in you:

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