15 years ago, reDiscover was founded to serve preschool and early elementary classrooms with creative reuse materials. 10 years ago, we added Tinkering programs to engage upper elementary kids using those same materials, plus power tools. 4 years ago, we started prototyping programs for middle schoolers, starting with camps for advanced tinkerers. Tinkering is play....
[Aaron Kramer is a reDiscover Board Member, artist, and educator who will be leading the 7/15-7/19 Tinkering School LA Masters Camp session] I visited the Pali camp twice this week for their end of the day ritual. Today they were revisiting a trend where the 7 and 8 year olds were saying Tuesday, “this squid...
Meet Marci Javril, a renter and volunteer extraordinaire at reDiscover Center! When Marci is not tirelessly promoting reDiscover Center she teaches a series of classes on head massages by renting the front studio space. Thank you Marci! reDiscover has many evening and some day time rental space available throughout the year. Weekend and weekday evenings plus some mornings....
At reDiscover, we use a lot of cardboard. From playgrounds built of appliance boxes to eight foot ball run tubes to cardboard bonsai to prototype lunch boxes in a Design Thinking project, its cardboard, cardboard, cardboard. Paperboard from cereal boxes. Double and triple ply shipping boxes strong enough to stand on. Paper towel rolls, carpet...
reDiscover Center launched Product Design Club at Beverly Vista School in February 2019. Supported by the Beverly Vista PTA, this lunchtime enrichment program meets every Tuesday to provide students in grades 3-8 with access to woodworking tools and creative reuse materials. From the first moments of the first session, crowds of students eagerly started tinkering,...
One of reDiscover’s favored phrases is “A Culture of Safety.” It’s the name of our core professional development workshop and top of mind for our facilitators in all of our programs. Culture is subtle, social, diverse, and vastly important. As the business aphorism goes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” A teacher with a great strategy...
ReDiscover is proud to partner with researchers at UCLA to help kids get more involved in science! The project, The Development of Anxiety in Youth Study (DAYS), is a landmark study funded by the National Institutes of Health, and it’s focused on understanding how brain development is linked to anxiety during adolescence. It’s asking (and...
Young minds have a distinct advantage: their minds are flexible in a way that adult minds aren't. They have great capacity for imagining wild combinations, they're open to learning new things (it is their full-time job, after all), and they are capable of extremely inventive solutions. With this in mind, have your young tinkerers help...
Part of the magic of reDiscover Center is that you never know exactly what materials might be waiting for you to explore! Facilitator Caitlin Dobbin found an empty coffee canister, tongue depressor, bottle caps, beads, yarn, lanyard, twine, burlap, straws, film negatives, moveable sign letters, puzzle pieces, metal clips and cardboard rings and, with some...
What exactly is tinkering? A question we often get asked at reDiscover Center. Our response? Tinkering is more than just making things. It?s experimenting, letting your creativity loose, letting yourself fail and learning from the experience. Tinkering is a way of expanding your mind and your conceptions about what can be done, and more importantly,...