Invention

How to Make a Paper Airplane

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Have you ever made a paper airplane? Did you learn how to make it from a book? Or maybe it was from the kid you shared a desk with in the third grade? I fall into the second camp, learning from my friends in school. And for all of the hundreds of airplanes we made, [...]

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How to…Invent a Recipe with Kids

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My house smells like pancakes. Which really means that it smells like cooking oil and caramelized sugar. Sort of a happy, greasy smell that has lingered for days. Every afternoon, for the past three days, my 3 year old turns into a kitchen alchemist as she gathers ingredients and invents her own recipes. She is in [...]

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Pop up Paper Zoo {Free Download}

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Back in September I wrote about how we made a Pop-Up Paper Zoo. This is one of my favorite posts because the project is child-directed and it can lead to imagination-building and experimentation. At the end of the post, I asked if anyone would like to have a PDF template so you could make these yourself. There were [...]

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How to Build a Simple Clip Fort

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How was your Valentine’s Day? We had a drizzly pre-Valentines romp in the park with friends and I spent Valentine’s morning leading a fun docent training workshop at the San Jose Museum of Art (SJMA). Under the leadership of Education Director, Lucy Larson, SJMA one of the most visitor-centered museums around. It’s not a huge museum, [...]

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Playing Big

This week I’m sharing kid-friendly inspiration from the Bay Area Maker Faire. Have you ever noticed that things can be much more fun and compelling when they’re really, really big? Think about awe-inspiring cruise ships vs. cute little kayaks or imaginative play possibilities in a refrigerator box. Today I have four show-stopping examples of play [...]

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Why Creative Thinking?

What will our childrens’ future look like? The world as we know it is changing so rapidly that it’s almost impossible to know what it will look like in just five years, let alone thirty. I saw the movie Social Network this weekend, and was reminded that Facebook has only been around for about five [...]

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MacArthur Foundation Awards "Genius Grants"

Have you ever dreamt of receiving a large sum of cash to pursue your creative dreams? You may have heard that the MacArthur Foundation just named twenty-three very surprised fellows as the recipients of this year’s “genius grant,” an unrestricted award of $500,000 to spend on projects of their choice. There is no application process [...]

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Slapdash Slide

While I’ve been on baby duty this past week, my husband has been an incredible pal to our older daughter, and it’s been inspiring to watch them develop their own style of play and invention. We both believe strongly in paying close attention to our child’s interests and then helping her grow beyond her current [...]

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Day One: Documenting Passion

I’m spending the week documenting my child’s interests. Check out yesterday’s post for more information. Day one Going on stroller rides. My otherwise stroller-hating child has been interested in this since we arrived at the Grandparents’ house.  Here, she’s not only patient with the activity, but she will actually climb into the stroller on her [...]

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