April Vacation Discoveries

April Vacation week at The Children’s Museum in Easton was full of fun and exciting discoveries! Each day a different Maker visited the Museum and shared their talents and knowledge through hands-on activities. MakerSpace designs opportunities for young people to "think with their hands" by combining Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. Investigating the way different tools work gives children a deeper understanding into a new world of possibilities! All week long, children had a blast exploring and uncovering new surprises while developing new insights.

The week kicked off on Monday with Weave a Piano lead by textile artist Rhonda Fazio. Rhonda showed visitors how to make a God’s Eye using sticks, wire and yarn. The beautiful pieces of woven art were then turned into a piano by hooking them up to circuits! It was a magic creation that was one of a kind.

In the morning on Tuesday, children made music with Maker Chelsea Santos. Chelsea shared her music talent by showing kids how to play different musical instruments like the drums and piano. It was a big hit! Then in the afternoon, stained glass artist, Linda Paolucci showed visitors how she creates her works of art by designing a beautiful butterfly. Linda let kids spread their wings by teaching them how to make their own pieces of stained glass. It was interesting to see just how much tools are needed to create her pieces.

Lights, camera, art! On Wednesday children got to create gorgeous art work by drawing with light. Within the blink of an eye, children could create a unique, one of kind drawing with their light stick. Maker Moria Flynn then joined us in the afternoon to teach us how to make jewelry. She even showed us how she makes her own jewelry for her store in Boston. Kids could design two types of bracletes or use stamps to create their own piece of jewelery.

On Thursday, the possibilities were endless as we used play dough and LED lights to create Squishy Circuits. Different works of art were brought to life by lights by using a battery and some circuits. It was a dazzling day of creativity and innovation.

Friday was a busy day at the Museum exploring robots. Throughout the day, kids could design and assemble a simple drawing robot with markers, a cup and tape. With the press of a button, the robot would create its own drawing by moving by itself! In the afternoon, Maker Steve Norris brought his robots to the Museum for us to play with! Steve even brought his robot, RoboSteel who appeared in the latest Transformer movie.

If you missed out on all the fun during April Vacation, look out for special pop-up classes during May and June! You can find out more information about the Mini Maker program by going to our website. We had so much fun this April Vacation and we hope you did to! To find out more about the different Mini Makers that visited this week, look out for posts about them in this upcoming week! 

*Written by Nicole Brooks, Public Relations Intern