Hands-On Activities
We offer seven hands-on activities for young makers and their parents or caregivers to engage in. We call them “Explorations” because they’re loosely guided modes of exploring different materials and properties. Our hope is that you use them as a springboard to develop your own unique explorations, designed specifically for your community. All activities have a version for you to use in your library programming and a subset also include a version to hand out to parents and caregivers to continue the exploration back at home.
Cardboard Exploration
Cardboard is a simple material with endless opportunities for exploration. Children can quickly become engineers by designing, shaping, creating, and building.
Circuit Exploration
Exploring electricity with young children can be somewhat intimidating, but keeping it simple allows children to develop a solid basis for understanding electricity as they get older. The objective is for them to explore, observe, and make predictions.
Light & Shadow Exploration
Playing and exploring with light and shadows is an interactive, fun way to introduce young children to making predictions and observations. The activity can be very simple (using flashlights or sunlight) or it can be more complex (using other mediums such as an overhead projector).
Ramps Exploration
Exploring with ramps looks like play, but the concepts behind what’s happening are absolutely science! By experimenting with designing and building ramps, children become mini engineers and are introduced to concepts in physics and math.
Simple Machines Exploration
Free play with levers, pulleys, and conveyor belts allows for experimentation and discovery. Many children are amazed by how a simple machine, which has very few moving parts, can make work a lot easier.
Wind Tunnel Exploration
Exploring with wind and air is both fun and exciting for young children, partly because wind is everywhere around them in their daily lives. Children learn that air and wind aren’t visible, but their effects are!
Woodworking Exploration
Young children enjoy the process of hammering, screwing, sawing, and being empowered to use tools in general. There’s always a great deal of trial, error, and experimenting with wood, essential to a child’s process of discovery.