We humans, big and small, are enamored of birds. Birds amaze us with their ability to fly, captivating calls, aptitude as builders and remarkable methods for surviving winter. This Winter at Tinkergarten, we invite explorers to team up with friends and family to build a life-sized, human-sized nest large enough for everyone to fit inside—and to discover that when we work together as a team, we can persist and solve big problems!
The Guide
Step 1: Watch the Nest For Explorers video lesson.
Hop into your Tinkergarten dashboard to watch the Nest For Explorers video lesson. Kids can watch how Meghan and other explorers use teamwork to build a nest, then get inspired to do their own nest play.
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Step 2: Learn abut bird nests.
Take a walk and search for birds' nests in your local green space. We are big fans of wearing “Tinkergarten binoculars” (two toilet paper rolls taped together). What do you notice about the nests? What shape are the nests? How big are they? What materials did birds use to create them?
Step 3: Wonder and problem solve together.
Wonder together: Isn’t it amazing that little birds can create these wonderful homes just out of the objects in nature? Do you think we could make a nest big enough for us out of the objects here in our outdoor space? Ask questions and reflect on what you read and noticed in your walk to help form a plan. What materials will we need? Where can we find them?
Step 4: Gather nest-building materials.
Gather sticks, grass, dried leaves and bits of things to use in the nest. Carry materials in your “beaks” (i.e. two hands near your mouth) to get closer to the bird’s experience. Tweet as much as you like.
Step 5: Start to build.
Once you have materials gathered, wonder together what shape the nest should be. Work as a team to create an outline of that shape on the ground using a piece of rope or twine. Then, keep adding sticks to the shape to create a thick outline. Wonder what kind of inside you’d want for the eggs. Gather soft and light materials and fill in the inside of the nest.
Step 6: Play bird!
Once the nest is complete, kids can enjoy playing mother bird, sitting on imaginary eggs. Or, kids can be the baby birds, chirping for their snack. With little modeling required, let the play, quite literally, take flight.
Why is this activity great for kids?
Building a nest using just the materials around us is a terrific problem-solving and engineering challenge for kids. Using teamwork as we build motivates us to overcome obstacles and accomplish our goals, an important part of persistence. Taking time to consider the needs and experiences of birds develops young children’s capacity for empathy. The very process of trying to envision and build something on a large scale together develops creative thinking and teamwork skills. Carrying sticks and other materials back and forth also makes for great transporting—a pattern of purposeful play exhibited by young children around the world. Finally, children learn a new pretend play scenario that they can use again and again, anywhere where there are sticks to round up into a nest.
When we talk about problem solving, we mean the ability to solve a problem in which the solution is not obvious and in which the possible paths to solution are many. To solve such problems, kids will need two things. First, they’ll need the self confidence and comfort to both attempt to find and persist in finding a solution. The only way to develop this is to be given the chance to struggle with ambiguous situations or open-ended problems. We parents are all guilty, from time to time, of helping kids avoid struggle or swooping in to alleviate frustration when our kid encounters challenge. The goal is actually to do the opposite whenever possible. As long as the problem is not too difficult to understand or challenging to solve, even young kids can get comfortable with the feeling of not knowing the solution and fall in love with the joy of finding a solution to a problem.
Kids also need strategies to attack problems with which they are faced. If adults are able to work with kids to solve problems “as a team” but in such a way that the children feel and act “in charge” of the decisions, adults can actually teach foundation problem solving skills and strategies through modeling. For example, when you solve a problem together, kids get practice with key parts of the process like brainstorming, testing ideas, revision and solution. It’s also pretty easy to model how to use simple strategies like trial and error or breaking a problem down into smaller parts. Although children age 1 to 7 should not be expected to name, catalog or identify when to use a particular problem solving strategy, they are able to form habits and repeat approaches once those habits or approaches have become familiar. The more problems they solve, the better they know and can use these methods.
Why does it matter?
“The highest ranked skills for students entering the workforce were not facts and basic skills; they were applied skills that enable workers to use the knowledge and basic skills they have acquired” (Source: Are They Really Ready for Work? Conference Board 2006).
Although it seems a long way to go before our young children are hitting the job market, the ability to solve challenging, ambiguous problems has already been identified as a critical skill for success in the 21st Century. With advances in technology, finding information has never been easier. However, knowing how to interpret a problem and use available information to devise a solution still needs to be learned. And, we fear that the classrooms of today are neither designed nor incentivized to teach these skills effectively. In most schools, so much time is spent learning discrete skills, that applied skills like problem solving are wildly underemphasized. In a world that demands it, it is increasingly necessary that children learn and practice these skills outside of school.
Empathy
Category:
Social Skills
What is Empathy?
Simply put, empathy is the ability to think and care about the feelings and needs of others. The good news is, the more we study, it appears that children are empathetic by nature. All we need to do is nurture it in them—that of course is now always easy. Even though young children are simply working on gaining control over their emotions and won’t learn to really think about their emotions and the cause and effect of their behavior on others until their school years, they can start to develop the foundation for empathy much earlier. Taking actions (and watching adults take actions) that benefit other people, caring for animals and their environment and even just wondering how other people or creatures are feeling helps build both positive habits and a strong base for the development of empathy.
Why does it matter?
Empathy is at the root of what psychologists call “pro-social” behavior—behavior that people must develop in order to develop a conscience, build close relationships, maintain friendships, and develop strong communities. Empathy also helps kids avoid bullying, one of the most worrisome social challenges young kids face. Being able to think and feel for others can keep kids from becoming either bully or victim and equip them to stand up for others who are bullied. Imagine if all kids had such tools!
Teamwork
Category:
Social Skills
What is Teamwork?
Teamwork is the ability to be both an individual contributor and a supportive member of a group. Not easy for little ones, but never too early to start learning how. Although the notion of teamwork seems rather self explanatory, the combination of skills that are required for kids to effectively work on a team is rather complex. People can work effectively in a group when they have a sense of their own strengths and needs, the ability to understand the needs and motivations of others, the ability to agree and focus on a common goal, and the capacity to adjust their personal needs for the good of the group. Needless to say, young kids are too young to master these skills, but they can make tremendous progress if we give them genuine experience with teamwork and help them develop the foundations that underlie this more complex set of skills.
On a most basic level, kids start to build teamwork skills as they learn to negotiate and share limited resources. Anyone who has kids know that these skills do not come naturally, but are developed with age and practice. Kids who have experience sharing and working in groups without the dominant management of parent or authority figure (e.g. the good old pick-up game of kick-the-can that was managed only by the kids in the neighborhood) get much more opportunity to develop the self awareness and skills needed for effective collaboration. The more chances we give kids to feel the pleasure in sharing and giving, the more quickly they become effective at sharing. In addition, when we model how to set a goal and allow kids to practice working towards that goal, we model the behavior they will eventually adopt as their won. Finally, when they experience success as a member of a team, they develop a lasting sense of the power of teamwork and the motivation to start to value a team over themselves.
Why does it matter?
Collaboration makes the cut on nearly every list of top 21st-century skills—and it has become not just a goal but a requirement for most jobs. Technology increasingly enables people to work together with people who differ by geography, culture and mindset, and businesses and institutions worldwide expect employees to work effectively in both face-to-face and in virtual teams. Those who collaborate effectively will not only be effective workers but will be poised to help find solutions to the increasingly complicated challenges this young generation will face.
Further, in most schools from elementary level up, kids get more out of the curriculum if they know how to work well in groups, and this trend of increased peer-to peer-teaching and learning is only gaining ground in older school years. Research even shows that how well young children solve simple problems in groups predicts how they will transition to and fare in formal schooling.
Age: 0 to 8+
Time: 1 hour+
Materials: sticks of various sizes; twine, rope or string
