Water Factory Tinkering at Boulder Public Library
This is a guest post by Celeste Moreno, a Creative Technologist in the Boulder Public Library District makerspaces and a designer of creative learning experiences for all ages.
I co-host a “Toddler Tinker Storytime” program with a wonderful librarian each month. We collaborate to plan these programs, selecting storybooks and tinkering-based activities that pair well together. The librarian hosts a storytime first, then kids come to the makerspace to engage in an activity related to the book they read together.
Last month, we paired the book “Swim Swim Sink by Jennifer Harney” with a couple activities from The Tinkering Workshop. We had shallow tubs of water set up with a variety of materials like pieces of pool noodles, recycled containers, toys, large washers, and more set up so that kids could explore what floats and what sinks.
We also set up a water exploration station inspired by the “Water Factory” activity in The Tinkering Workshop book. This was a big hit with our young learners and makers, and with their adults!
Coincidentally, I am trying to regrow some of the grass in my yard at home and had extra mesh and stakes lying around that were perfect for this activity. The components I included in our water wall came from a mixture of my stash of interesting odds and ends that I keep handy just for activities like this, and from an amazing local hardware store. At this hardware store there are lots of off-cuts and scraps from the bulk materials they sell. That’s how I found some of the sections of tubing included in our water factory.
It was a little tricky to guess the right placement and height of the components on the wall for toddlers. I wanted enough room for water to flow, but I also wanted the funnels and tubes to be easy for young makers to reach. In the future I might also include a note in our program description that warns adults that their child might get wet, especially since at this age, playing with and splashing around in water is a lot of fun and young hands are still working on motor control and dexterity so occasionally water doesn’t quite make it into the containers.
One thing that the adults loved was how accessible this activity seemed to be. We discussed how they could create something like this at home using the materials they have readily available. And of course, this was a perfect opportunity to point them back to The Tinkering Workshop book, which is bursting with ideas for accessible making and tinkering with everyday materials.