Critical Thinking Skills

Diet Coke Mentos Experiment

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My 4-year old and our neighbor enjoyed witnessing this explosive soda and Minty Mentos experiment. Have you tried it? It doen’t require a huge set-up, and the show is pretty awesome. I have to warn you that the explosion itself goes by quickly, so you might want to have an arsenal of soda containers on [...]

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Make Your Own Birthday Cake

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If you know a little bit about me and my parenting philosophy, you’ll know that I welcome opportunities to get my children into DIY mode. The only way they’re going to learn how to do something is by getting involved, so I may give them a few pointers and then I’ll step back and let them [...]

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Crushed Flower Experiment

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Now that summer is coming to an end (sniff — I’m kind of in denial — you?), it’s a good time to harvest some of your last blooms for some flower-painting experiments. We took a walk around the neighborhood and picked some weeds from wild roadside gardens, and also selected a handful of flowers and [...]

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DIY Baby Fabric Bucket Toy

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The following post is from the archives. It originally appeared in April, 2011. If you’re looking for ways to mix up your baby play time routine, you might enjoy trying this simple activity with materials you may already have in the closet and recycling can. I often wax poetic about my preschooler’s creative pursuits while my little [...]

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Messy Art: Splat Paint Olympics

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Today I’m over on the Melissa and Doug blog, writing about our experience making Splat Paint Olympic Rings with household sponges. Painting with non-traditional materials does wonders for helping children look at the world with fresh eyes. And throwing paint-soaked sponges? Well, that’s just silly fun.   While we did this with the end-game of [...]

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Invisible Ink: A Citrus Painting Experiment

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Can you tell me what you think? I’m playing around with my header design (procrastinating away from other important things, no doubt) and would love to hear your opinion on it. Do you like it? Is it legible? Does it need anything? What do you think about the sub-heading? When you think about Tinkerlab, what [...]

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DIY Paper Tape Roads

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Sometimes we have to push our kids outside their comfort zones to help them take on new perspectives, face and overcome challenges, and confront their biases. I have a growing collection of diecast vehicles that I keep in a nice, inviting basket. And do you know who plays with these cars, trucks, and airplanes? Boys who [...]

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Imaginative Play: Dress-up

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Do your kids love dressing up? Mine do, and not a day goes by that they’re not in a bumblebee costume, waving around magic wands, or adorned with tiaras.   I should say that I fall into the camp of allowing my kids to dress themselves, which does wonders for fueling their creativity, imagination, and independence. [...]

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Easy Art: Air Dry Clay

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Material: Air Dry Clay Have you ever noticed that kids don’t need a lot of bells and whistles and fancy stuff to get creative, have fun, and feel on top of the world? Yesterday we foraged some cardboard boxes from a neighbor’s move because 4-year old Nutmeg has a vision of building a space station. [...]

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