Launching Saturday Series

“Tinkering Together"

Wonder. Rethink. Tinker. Reinvent. Play.

WHEN:  2/18/2012

WHERE:  274 North Winooski Avenue Burlington VT

(Enter through red door at Learning Materials Workshop)

$15 per family with preschool age children (Includes treasures to take home)

Limited Space-reserve ahead @ tinkeringproject.vt@gmail.com

Join our blog: tinkeringprojectvt.blogspot.com

Looking for a weekend activity to do with your family?

Come be creative while thinking outside the box!  Gathering together children, friends, and community.  “Tinker” with items from nature, business extras, natural and recycled every day materials.

Support a non-profit’s mission...

“To empower educators, children, and the community to connect, inspire and create their respective visions, through the creative

reuse of open-ended materials while simultaneously promoting environmental responsibilities.”

Threads, Projects, Curriculum Reusing Materials

This collection of photographs documents the use of materials in provoking, facilitating, and providing rich learning opportunities for children ages 3-5.  

The first series is a study of our community of Burlington.  Reusing tape, the children constructed a map of our school on the classroom floor also incorporating literacy as they labeled their construction.  

A study of self (portraints in particular in this case) incorporated a variety of materials reused such as the caps shown, gift packaging, tracing paper for self portraits, large butcher paper for portraits cast on the wall with a projector, inspired children.  

A child's interest in constructing a Rube Goldberg machine, inspired the study of machines!  A four month thread exploded into a majority of our classroom environment.  Using any material available, for example; cardboard tubes, automobile stainless steel funnels, tape, cardboard, packaging, old gutters, window shade samples, natural materials such as rocks, fence post pieces and recycled golf balls and ping pong balls all enhanced, challenged, and inspired children's hypothesis and theories.  Videos of Rube Goldberg Machines were studied by children, who then found inspirations in creating and constructing their own! Children brainstormed and collected what materials they would use to construct and test their machines.  This project surprisingly met every learning domain, style, and need.  Each child planned, illustrated and organized their ideas, taking on project manager.  Collaborating with peers to construct as well as deconstruct over a weeks time, each machine stood for a weeks time, adding to daily and tested endlessly.         

          A study of color; primary and complementary was experimented with in our classroom light studio.  Using old clear plastic ornaments, cardboard tubes, eye droppers, glass tubes from the UVM science labs, clear egg carton containers, coffee filters, plexi glass with magnets and recycled plastic cups from the ReStore.  Children were able to tinker and test mixing colors or shades, with the opportunity to save samples, allowing them to reflect upon the process and further their knowledge. 

Photographs of Beautiful Materials

Welcome to our new blog as we launch the Tinkering Project VT!  Thanks to the encouragement, support and commitment of many people over many years (you know who you are......Karen, Jeanne, Sara, Erin, Heather, Mark, Theresa H, Julia W, Emily C., RIVET folks, .... We know we're forgetting others...thank you!) we're finally, 'officially' creating our VT. version of the  creative recycling concept of  Remida in Reggio Emilia, Italy (see link under Resources).

A small group of parents, business people, educators, and community members has resurrected the original group's work that began over 4 years ago.  Thus far we're in the process of creating a non-profit corporation and Board of Directors; collaborating with local schools to realize the potential of using open-ended materials to  spark imagination and creative re-thinking; collecting and sorting recycled, re-purposed materials into art studios or resource closets; and collaborating with early childhood educators in neighboring counties.  We ideally want a physical space to store, sort, and play with materials and ideas of all kind. Do you know of one?!

Please share  your thoughts, inspirations, ideas, resources (especially related to accessing unique materials), projects, and questions.  How would you like to support the vision?

Tara   &   Susan

Tara Gravelin  & Susan Torncello

Mission: 
To empower educators, children, and the community to connect, inspire and create visions and knowledge, through the creative reuse of open-ended materials while simultaneously promoting environmental responsibilities.


Vision:
To collaborate with businesses, educators, children, families and the greater community to instill a culture of environmental responsibility and playful learning through using our collective resources in creative ways. 

Who Benefits from Tinkering and Reusing Varied Materials?

WHO BENEFITS? (Reusable Resource Center)


What's in it for the children? 
Research and common sense says children learn best through self active "hands-on" experiences.  Self esteem and social competence are advanced through concrete cooperative learning.  Children are out most valuable resource and will be the creative problem solvers of tomorrow.  They can create something no one's ever seen before! Reusing clean donated materials gives children an opportunity they might not otherwise have.  It also teaches a respect for the environment


What's in it for schools?
A consistent, urgent call from teachers nationally is for an on-going supply of creative hands-on materials to implement the new educational standards and curriculum frameworks! Teachers need material resources to implement change! Due to low budgets they often cannot provide the needed resources unless they are donated.


What's in it for businesses?
Businesses everywhere generate an abundance of unwanted solid waste products, overruns, rejects, obsolete parts, and discontinued items; and it cost businesses a lot of money to dispose of their discards.  By donating materials, not only do they help their bottom line, but they also help their own community.


What's in it for the environment?
Less materials will be headed for the landfills without being reused first.
http://reusableresources.homestead.com/