... well I'm sure there's lots more things I forgot to tell you about the pleasures of tinkering with this latest group, but for now one wonderful little story just popped into my head. I had brought a few big bags of materials to work with. We were doing an egg-drop challenge and the 'materials' were really just a smorgasbord of stuff I had plundered from my recycling bin. But Ayden, pictured above, who just happens to be a master tinkerer extraordinaire, must have thought the stuff was a little more special than it was, as it had arrived specifically for tinkering. Whilst rifling through the strawberry containers and milk cartons he found a flier that was about a sprinkler park near my house, which had a picture with a lot of kids playing in the fountain. He showed it to me excitedly and said, "Wow! Look what these kids built!" and started pointing all the different parts of it and how he thought they had built it. It just really made my heart swell that he really just felt like anything was possible, that he could build anything he wanted to, just figure it out and build it. I think that is such a wonderful quality to have, and is one main reason among many main reasons that I want kids to have the opportunity to tinker. Kids who think that way aren't going to be saying, "Wow, it's really a bummer that they can't figure out how to seal the hole and prevent all that oil from gushing into our ocean. But I can't really do anything about so I wonder what's on TV."
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Oh, and one more thing I forgot to tell you...
... well I'm sure there's lots more things I forgot to tell you about the pleasures of tinkering with this latest group, but for now one wonderful little story just popped into my head. I had brought a few big bags of materials to work with. We were doing an egg-drop challenge and the 'materials' were really just a smorgasbord of stuff I had plundered from my recycling bin. But Ayden, pictured above, who just happens to be a master tinkerer extraordinaire, must have thought the stuff was a little more special than it was, as it had arrived specifically for tinkering. Whilst rifling through the strawberry containers and milk cartons he found a flier that was about a sprinkler park near my house, which had a picture with a lot of kids playing in the fountain. He showed it to me excitedly and said, "Wow! Look what these kids built!" and started pointing all the different parts of it and how he thought they had built it. It just really made my heart swell that he really just felt like anything was possible, that he could build anything he wanted to, just figure it out and build it. I think that is such a wonderful quality to have, and is one main reason among many main reasons that I want kids to have the opportunity to tinker. Kids who think that way aren't going to be saying, "Wow, it's really a bummer that they can't figure out how to seal the hole and prevent all that oil from gushing into our ocean. But I can't really do anything about so I wonder what's on TV."
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2 comments:
It's incredible how creative and competent children are when we give them the opportunity to freely explore and take risks. It makes me so happy to read about your tinkering adventures and your willingness/ability to let kids see how powerful they can be in the world. Rock on, my sister!
what an awesome story! felt very warm and fuzzy to see one of the items from my garage being re-used, too (hee hee)!
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