Tinkering Station for Young Engineers

I’m excited to share one of the recent book adventures we had with Jill over at Confidence Meets Parenting… We’ve fallen in love with a book called Rosie Revere, Engineer and set up a Tinkering Station to go along with it. It’s an inspiring story about a smart little girl who likes to tinker with trash and make amazing contraptions. But her inventions don’t always work quite right so she gets frustrated. That is until a very special family member takes her aside and teaches her that failure is the first step in inventing something spectacular. For a fun way to help build confidence in kids (and build young engineers!), follow these simple steps to tinkering fun.

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Tinkering Station Supplies

It doesn’t take much to set up your own Tinkering Station. A few items from the recycling bin and some odds and ends like tape and bolts and you’re ready to go. Plus, don’t forget a journal and pen so the kids can record their ideas. Here’s what I laid out for The Babe:

nuts and bolts
hole punch
tape
rubber bands
old chop sticks
recycled cardboard
recycled bottles
ruler
twine
leftover wheels from a broken toy
journal
pen / markers

Let the Tinkering Begin

What’s the goal here? Some open-ended creative play for your kiddo. Just lay everything out, step back and slyly observe 🙂 I have to say, this was one of The Babe’s favorite Left Brain Craft Brain projects so far. And because of that, it was really cool to watch her get into it. She’s 3 1/2, and hasn’t ever really been much of a building kind of kid. Legos? Boring. Blocks? Sometimes. But a tinkering station? She was all over it!

She literally sat down at the station, opened the pen, and started drawing her contraption. She said ok, I’m going to build a car, but I should draw it first. Then she tinkered and built a “car”. Then she drew it out again, post-build. This mama engineer was so proud of her little engineer for working through a design process all on her own!

Talk About Tinkering

Tinkering open play is a great chance to talk with your kiddo about trial and error and failure. Experimenting helps kids develop logic skills, important for daily life, not just engineering. Some good open-ended questions to ask:

What did you design?
How does it work?
What parts were harder than you expected to design / draw / build / make ?
Does this look and work like what you thought it would when you started? Why or why not?
What would you do differently next time?

Every kid can be an engineer, it just takes trying! As Rosie’s Aunt Rose said, “The only true failure comes if you quit.” 🙂

This post contains affiliate links to help support our crazy craft supply budget! Thanks for helping out.

Tinkering Station Supplies

Let the Tinkering Begin

Talk About Tinkering

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