Today we are at the Chicago Children's Museum and I am in the tinkering lab with none other
than: Kim Koin, Director of Art and Tinkering Studios at the Chicago Children's Museum.
Which is the coolest title here, and probably the longest title. And I'm really excited
to have her because Kim is a super awesome tinkerer and I know nothing about tinkering.
So today is the day that we are all going to find out, not only why tinkering is important
but, how you can do it at home with your little ones. So, let's get started.
What is tinkering?
Tinkering has been around forever and you know knowing that babies tinker, a lot of
tinkering is trying things out, not having a pre-described notion of what you're going
to do. So if you think about a baby picking up a ball, a toilet paper tube, um, a piece
of kleenex, kind of just discovering what it is. So that's what tinkering is, for babies.
So like exploration. Part of tinkering is what I like to say is learning that failure
is a great option. So if you fail, you're going to learn from that. You're going to
be able to take that information and then make something better. We are using hammers
and saws, sometimes even some power drills with children. The first thing you see when
you come in is a stop sign that says "eye protection required." So I know that the children
that can come in and can try out the hammers, saws, are the children that can put on their
safety glasses, and keep them on their face. We've had three and four year olds come in
the space and they have been able to try out a hammer and a nail. Step one is this tool:
giving them a C clamp. So we do want to use this clamp, we're going to clamp it to the
table. So we need to make this bigger. A lot of what we do at the children's museum, we
say, "We wait, watch, follow". So we want to give kids adults, everyone a chance to yeah figure
it out for themselves. I am watching a child do this so, are they able to pay attention?
Are they able to focus on what the clamp is doing? Then I kinda know how to present the
drill to them. I noticed that we have some disassembled animals on the table right now
and I'm extremely curious about whatever this is. What we do at Tinkering Lab, one of our
programs is The Art of Take Apart. So we might have multiples of something, which can be great.
So we try to have at least something that works so that when you're taking apart
you can see what's happening. I see his legs move, his tail is moving, his nose moves,
and he makes a wonderful noise. Stuff the batteries in, turn em on. So now we can really
see well how does the nose move, wow there's a little mechanism in there, how does the
tail move, there's a spring in there. And because we were able to get so many multiples
of those. Would that turn on? Yes. That's going to be cool! So here we go. Let's see
how this one is going to work.
So now you can really see how this nose works, so how it's connected.
And it's still oinking.
Sadly there's not a lot of tinkering in school just due to lack of time.
And not everyone is able to come down to the Children's Museum, although you should,
but so let's say you're at home on a Saturday, and you want to tinker.
What's the best way to start with your little one, if you were a parent? Let's go out to the
garage and BLANK. What should we do? That's a good question, I would say keep it simple.
You don't need to have a whole tinkering lab. That is ok. One thing we do at the tinkering
lab is we might just have a big piece of wood, a hammer, and nails. And that's it. And you
know, again, see how your child gets into that. If you happen to be in Chicago, come
on down to the Chicago Children's Museum, if not, make sure to check out your local
area because there's a lot of museums, and a lot of places that offer tinkering and tinkering
camps and tinkering workshops. And, also, you can tinker in your home. Now that we know
how. So, make the most of it, because tinkering is No Small Matter.
I hit the nail on the head! That's my pun for today.