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, what you can do. If something isn?t quite right, fix it! If what you need doesn?t exist, invent it! Tinkering is about gaining the confidence to be an active participant of the world, and to shape the future. Tinkering is a skill that children can develop and practice throughout their lives.
Why tinker at home?
Much to the chagrin of some of our tinkerers, you can?t live at reDiscover Center. It?s important to have the essentials available when inspiration strikes. Kids spend more time at home than school and activities combined, particularly unscheduled time that is conducive to making and tinkering. We want all kids to have agency in their activities, to make things that matter to them and that will help them in their lives.
To help you with this journey we created https://tinkeringla.com/. The site will cover not only some specific activities that you can do with your kids (or let them do on their own), but go into the philosophy of maker education, so you can be better equipped to help your children grow as independent makers.
We also started a newsletter just for Tinkering@Home.
