Tinkerlab

This summer, we decided to try something a little different.  For the past 4+ years, we had been doing some kind of variation on story and a craft or budding artists.  It was an hour long craft program for ages 8 & up (or 5 & up after we lowered it).  In fact, you can read a bit about it in this post.  However we still had people who insisted on bringing younger children to the program.  At first we countered that by having an alternate craft for them.  Then, we turned it into story and a craft, where we read a story and then did simpler crafts.  At least I thought they were simpler - and for the most part they were, until last year during the science themed summer when we got to optical illusions and I saw children having meltdowns because they weren't getting it "right".  That was way too much stress for what was supposed to just be a fun art class.  So I started looking around.

The first thing I found was this:  Art Lab for Little Kids: 52 Playful Projects for Preschoolers by Susan Schwake.  Awesome, right?  Actually, yes - it is.  However, it was still a little too structured for my tastes.  Side note:  you should check out the other books in this series.  I ordered this one, the painting one, and the drawing one for my library and I think they are SO cool.

I started clicking through the list on the bottom - you know the "other users bought" list, and I found this book: Tinkerlab: A Hands-On Guide for Little Inventors by Rachelle Doorley.  Hmmmm.  Sounds interesting.  So I click on the look inside and read for awhile and I love it!  This mom (who is also an artist and arts educator) started a blog called Tinkerlab that got turned into a book, and it's all about letting kids be as creative as possible - giving them the supplies to do their own projects, and the freedom to make them.  She has guides on showing children how certain new materials can be used, but that freedom of creativity really stuck with me.  (Yes, I ordered the book for my library).

Inspired, I thought "I can do that"!  So rather than do led projects this year, we did our own version of Tinkerlab.  We set out supplies every week, and the children could just come and make *whatever* they wanted.  We had a jar full of ideas and some pattern and color dice in case they needed a nudge, but in the 10 weeks and 20 programs we did?  They were used maybe twice.  Different supplies were set out the initial 6 weeks of our main summer programming, and boy - did things get interesting.  I learned never to trust a group of children with glue guns.  While they can certainly learn not to touch it themselves, they have almost no awareness outside of themselves, and there were a few close-calls.  We had a core group of supplies that were always on hand (glue, scissors, paper, crayons, markers), but here's the 6 weeks (plus the only one we did later that had a theme):

1.Sensory - kinetic sand, water beads, beans.  Mostly this was in case there were really small children who showed up and it was a chance for kids to play.  Once set listened really well about not mixing the water beads and beans.  One did not. :/

2.Ooh Shiny - feathers, sequins, rhinestones, pom-poms, felt, and ribbons.  The children really enjoyed this one - especially the girly-girls.

3. Beads - we have SO many beads stocked up, I haven't bought any in years.  We needed to get rid of some and this was the best way to do it.  It barely put a dent in our stock.

4.Old Tech - audio cassettes, microfilm, DVD cases, computer keys, floppy disks.  This was the glue gun week.  It was cute b/c they wanted to make their own "computers".  I had to show them the tape inside the cassettes.  A couple got creative with it - most just wanted to pull it out and cut it up.

5. Paper Goods - mat board cutouts, wrapping paper, tissue paper, coffee filters, confetti, scrap paper. We had lots of leftover cutouts from our die-cut machine and inexplicable wrapping paper from the 80s.  This helped get rid of that.  Unfortunately it generated a LOT of scrap paper.  Later in the summer, I restricted them to 1 whole sheet of paper per project and forced them to use scraps for anything else they needed.

6.  Mixed bag - we put anything and everything out.

7.  Food - beans (black, pinto, lentils, split peas [yellow and green]), barley, dyed rice, cinnamon sticks, dried peppers, pasta (macaroni, shells, farfalle, ditalini, linguini).  It can be controversial, and Rachel addresses that in her book and on her blog, but really?  It's just an awful mess.  Everyone really loved that week though, and one of the 10 habits of Tinkerlab is "Embrace a Good Mess".  *sigh*

The biggest stress of this program was setting up the room every week - and even that wasn't that bad.  It can get a little expensive, but if you stick to construction paper and the basics, it doesn't have to be.  Ask people for donations.  Or you know what?  They'll hear about your program and just start giving them to you anyway.  Have fun!