More Making and Tinkering Gift Ideas

As the holiday season has swung into full gear, I’ve been really thrilled to see my new book, The Tinkering Workshop, featured in several holiday gift guides from some of my favorite websites, organizations and maker influencers. I wanted to share a couple highlights that you all can look at to find all sorts of toys, tools books and inspirational materials for the tinkerers in your life.

First off I wanted to highlight Jen Schachter’s “favorite things of 2024” video on Tested which highlighted The Tinkering Workshop along with some really fun tools, a creepy cookbook and workshop accessories. I worked with Jen several years ago to create a tinkering summer camp in Saudi Arabia and have been following her large collaborative making and art projects in the years since then.

Another amazing gift guide comes from the website The Kids Should See This, that curates weird and whimsical child-friendly videos across the internet. I really like this resource because it organizes possible gifts in categories like books, DIY, teens and art/design so you can get really specific about the recipient.

It’s been really fun to connect with LA STEM Collective which is a group that connects all sorts of informal and formal science education organizations around Los Angeles. They created a crowdsourced gift guide with lots of fun elements.

And finally it’s always great to get a shoutout from my former tinkering home, The Exploratorium so I was really honored to see the book listed among their selections of gifts for kids, makers, science lovers along with some little stocking stuffers. The Tinkering Workshop can also be found on the shelves of the store at the Exploratorium so you can take a field trip to Pier 15 in San Francisco and pick up a copy in person there as well.

*JUST ADDED I wanted to also put in a link to the Constructing Modern Knowledge “favorite things for creative educators” gift list this year! They curated a great list of education books, projects guides and references for musical investigations.

Hope that everyone has a great holiday season and stay tuned for a couple more special recap and countdown blog posts before the end of the year.