Tinkering School Buffalo is now in its third year of summer workshops. Our school is one of the first national extensions of Gever Tulley’s highly regarded experiential learning program http://www.tinkeringschool.com/.
The Tinkering School approach uses open-ended building projects to build children’s creative thinking and problem-solving skills and, by giving them the freedom to fail, helps show them that education is a journey, not a destination.
When given time and the chance to try something new, young people can do amazing things. We encourage them to take chances with their work, and teach them that they can learn as much (if not more) from their failures as they can from their successes.
Our projects can be big (think playground climbing wall) to small, like miniature robots for example. Campers work on their own and in teams. We encourage everyone to take their time, make mistakes, and get to know each other. Typically our team size is 3-4 kids, with one adult collaborator to help out when needed.