Repairing a Maneki-Neko
I’m working on more and more making and tinkering projects with my two-year-old son in these days. I wanted to write about a recent experience that really opened my eyes about the possibilities for exploring these types of activities with very young learners.
For Christmas he got a Maneki-neko or lucky beckoning cat from Santa (he got a bit obsessed with them after our trip to San Francisco in the fall). Unfortunately the moving arm got twisted off at a holiday gathering not long after he opened the present. So the day after Christmas we got out some tools and materials and set about the task of repairing it. He already knows that things can getting broken and things can be fixed and he repeated these concepts out loud several times. He tried to just press the arm back in place a couple of times (possibly because some of his other toys with magnets or LEGO bricks work that way) and we talked about why it didn’t work.
He was really excited to unscrew the body with a mini screwdriver and see what was inside. It turned out to be a simple swinging arm with a magnet at the end moving over a coil of wire powered by a mini solar panel. As a first attempt to fix the cat we tried gluing the arm with super glue (he sat back and watched this part) but the place where it twisted was too small to get a good connection. For the next attempt we added a bit of elmer’s glue and it stuck for a while but didn’t last once we closed up the body.
After a day of thinking, we came up with the idea of wrapping a thin wire around the swinging piece, leaving an extra bit of wire poking out the hole. We traced the arm on a piece of paper, cut it out and added the marks to make the paw. Once we screwed everything back together the arm waved almost as well as it had before.
As we worked, I narrated what I was doing and he repeated back some of the words and phrases. During this project we talked about trying multiple ideas, making observations, dissecting something and seeing what’s inside, documenting what we tried and how to fit shapes back together. He got to try using a screwdriver, cutting paper with scissors and wire with snippers and he saw me using tape and glue to try and reconnect the pieces. And we connected the tinkering to bigger ideas like making and using prosthetics (he also has a paraolympics Phryge mascot stuffed animal that we got out to look at) and solar energy (he’s seen other solar panels around the garden and we used one to make a tinkered lantern). These ideas and practices build over time and the process of fixing the cat gave us the chance to think and think about so many things.
As we repaired the mechanism, I learned from his ideas and experiments. Working with a two year old there’s usually lots of repetition of words and idea as well as unexpected connections. There’s so much identification with the materials and characters and I can see how his imagination makes the elements come alive (when he opened the present he was already imitating the movement as we fixed it he showed concern for it’s well-being. I see his pride when things work and sense of wonder as he develops an understanding about the world around him. I would love to learn more about how to support very young tinkerers and continue sharing these ideas here on the blog. If you are a parent, caregiver or educator trying making/tinkering/repair projects with very young learner I would love to connect and chat more about projects and possibilities.