Classroom and After School Enrichment

Tinkering Workshop is a place where children imagine, dream, and think; a setting for making things, experimenting and fiddling with many materials, an unfiltered space for children to work with their eyes, their hands, and their creative spirits. Tinkering Workshop gives children the tools and materials they need to build, the freedom to fail, and the time to pick themselves back up. This process provides marvelous opportunities to deepen learning and develop problem solving skills. Our instructors are passionate tinkerers themselves. They teach children how to use tools, work individually and as a team, and translate their imaginations into physical objects.

reDiscover Center has served the Los Angeles community since 2004 by helping children turn recycled materials into the creative projects of their dreams. We unlock children's natural ingenuity. We cultivate curious minds. Since 2011 we have partnered with Gever Tulley's internationally renowned Tinkering School programs in San Francisco to offer camps and workshops in Los Angeles.

In 8-12 weekly sessions lasting from 60 to 90 minutes, Tinkering Workshop teaches children the skills they need to work confidently in wood and creative reuse materials to build robust structures as wild as their imaginations. Transforming a classroom or empty space into the Tinkering Workshop each week gives children the setting they need to really get into making, inventing, building, and tinkering. Experimenting with real materials like cardboard, bamboo, and wood to create artistically and solve reDiscover's design challenges introduces students to the links between sculpture and the engineering design process. Tinkering Workshop makes art appealing to budding engineers and engineering interesting to the artists among us.

Please contact tinkering@rediscovercenter.org or call 310-393-3636 for more information on how we can bring Tinkering Workshop to your school or organization.

• 8-12 Week Tinkering Workshop in-school program arc
• 60-90 minutes per session, with 30-60 minutes setup and clean up each day
• 1 Tinkering School instructor with 1-2 assistants, including your staff if available
• Up to 16 students in grades K-2 or 3-5
• Activities subject to modification based on client requests and participants' aptitude and interest

Arc goals:
Teamwork and communication skills Engineering design process
Facility with wood and woodworking tools
Sample Sequence of Activities:
Week one: Wind Tube Aerodynamics Exploration.
Week two: Introduction to wood and its physical properties. Clamping Challenge.
Week three: Cordless drills I, drilling. Bubble Initial project.
Week four: Cordless drills II, screwing. String Art project.
Week five: Structural engineering with 4' bamboo struts.
Week six: Stomp Rockets.
Week seven: Big Build I, design. Example themes: Moon Base, Undersea Adventure, Dinosaurs, Mechanical Sculpture, Shadow Puppet Theater.
Week eight: Big Build II, construction.
9-12 week programs include additional Design Challenges, extended Big Build time, and Free Build sessions.