Supplies

You should replace supplies with anything similar you have at home
Here is an Amazon supply list for those without much at home.
​Here is a more detailed supply list with notes on it.
Glue guns require you take responsibility for supervising. 
If you need to pickup supplies, reach out to us by email.

Project 1
Paper Plane Challenge

Paper planes can be remarkably simple or incredibly complex, depending on how much effort you put into making one. Our budding aeromechanics are encouraged to explore how variation in shape and weight can affect lift and pitch as they make and alter multiple planes and attempt to fly them to a target.

Friday, March 27th at 2pm
Recorded Video
SET UP INSTRUCTIONS. Kids will throw paper planes, so make sure they know where they're allowed to do so! Here's an optional 1.5 minute video to help parents add to the experience.

Project 2
Shadow Puppets

Shadow puppets are an ancient form of theater and children’s play, integral to many Asian cultures. In making their own shadow puppets kids learn about optical illusions and light, developing their observation skills and creativity. Additionally, rendering an object in silhouette transforms it from 3D to 2D, exercising kids’ spatial processing as they visualize how the object they are controlling in space will look flattened out as a shadow on screen. For instance, if they are closer to the light, it will grow. If they turn a paper puppet to the side, it will get thinner and change its shape, eventually becoming just a line.

Tuesday, March 31st at 11am
Recorded Video
SET UP INSTRUCTIONS. Here's an optional 3.5 minute video to help parents add to the experience.

Project 3
Yarn Crafts

Knotwork and yarn craft get a bad rap. Often relegated to “simple craft” status, these skills are not only incredibly fun and engaging and bring joy to working with your hands, but also exercise multiple important STEM skills. Weaving yarn or string into intelligible patterns exercises a kid’s spatial perception, mental folding and rotation abilities, fine motor skills, and persistence. Most importantly, they are ideal to teach the concepts of patterning or recursion (following a sequence of instructions repeatedly to form regular, identifiable, intelligible form) as well as identifying and working with sequences and keeping track of basic math facts. Pretty impressive for a bit of string!

Tuesday, April 7th at 11am
Recorded Video


​Project 4
Origami


​Origami is an ancient activity, but it’s still popular today. Through this ages-old paper folding technique, kids will enhance their fine motor skills and explore shapes and construction, as well as creating interesting objects and making some of them move!

Tuesday, April 14th at 11am
email for password
Recorded Video

Project 5
Tiny House Build

Thumbelina is tired of people who keep trying to marry her, and wants a home of her own. Our budding architects create a basic blueprint and use this to build a Thumbelina-sized house. The skill of creating blueprints is one that extends well beyond the field of architecture, and the kids will really develop their spatial abilities when they translate their model into a real house.

Wednesday, April 22nd at 1pm
email for password
Recorded Video

Project 6
Tiny Furniture Design

Making tiny furniture is so much fun it’s hard to believe it teaches so many STEM skills! Kids work on their design thinking and spatial skills by considering scale, customer, function, and form then building and iterating, finding the best materials for the job. The abstract thinking required to see how an old cork would make a great table leg or a matchbox a good bed, is also great exercise for the brain!

Wednesday, April 29th at 1pm
email for password
Recorded Video

Project 7
Paper Climbers

Paper Climbers move through friction, a fundamental force that is key in physics. Kids will encounter friction in middle school and high school classrooms, as well as in everyday life, and this project helps them begin to understand it. Why do you need to keep pushing a skateboard or a scooter? Friction! Kids will also be able to creatively design their climbers and then use them to race with each other!

Tuesday, May 5th at 11am
email for password
Recorded Video


​Project 8
Book Making


​Create a perfect place to jot down ideas, write your own story, or draw to your heart’s content under a tree in the shade.

Tuesday, May 12th at 11am
email for password
Recorded Video


​Project 9
Animal Blocks

This short extra project really gives kids’ spatial skills a workout as they mentally fold and rotate the sides of their shape, create 3D shapes out of 2D shapes, and abstract the animals they visualize in their heads into simple shape form.

Tuesday, May 19th at 11am
email for password
Recorded Video

Project 10
Spinning Top

Circular motion physics! The kids will make spinning tops out of found objects, trying different iterations to explore how to make a spinning top that really spins well. They create their own specification, so they might work towards a top that spins longest, stays most centered, or maybe does interesting things with color (a diversion into Optical Physics) as it spins. Whatever they’re aiming for, they’ll learn to develop a hypothesis for how to achieve it, strengthen their critical thinking skills as they evaluate what works, and gain an appreciation for iteration in design.

Tuesday, May 26th at 11am
email for password
Recorded Video