Under Construction will encourage children and adults to explore stuff as they design and build together. 

Central to the gallery will be ample space for children to create and build. Building materials will vary from Froebel blocks to Edublocks to boxes to Tinker Toys. Flexible sets of components will be available for larger construction projects, but they can also easily be stored and/or used in other areas. Work room will facili-tate design, building, fixing, thinking and figure stuff out using your hands and stuff. 

Daily challenges encourage children to think about stuff and how it works in new ways. Tinkering, focused activity with the right materials in the right environment, can lead to great new inven-tions, but more importantly builds self-confidence, critical think-ing skills, and crucial attitudes that scaffold people’s interest in science, technology, engineering, and math. 

Principle elements will include: 

Changing challenges will encourage children to work with dif-ferent materials and new methods. 

Places to find the stuff and the small tools needed to invent and create. 

Places to show off great creations. 

Messages/Objectives: 

We can explore the different tools and materials people use to build and solve problems.. 

Experimenting with real materials and real tools can be fun. 

Working with others can be imaginative and creative. 

Children think with hands as they move, construct and manipulate physical blocks, bits and pieces and found objects. Children learn to communicate in space, rather than with words. 

Loose parts are materials that can be moved, carried, combined, redesigned, lined up, and taken apart and put back together in multiple ways. An area rich in loose parts introduces and encour-ages new ways of coming up with ideas and sharing them with others. Multiple, low resolution models of real things allow chil-dren to try different iterations quickly and repeatedly, so they are learning by doing. 

Open ended materials, environments, and experiences encourage problem solving and allow children to steer their own exploration. Children involve themselves in concrete experiences using loose parts, which lead to explorations that occur naturally, as opposed to adult directed. However, adults do play important, intentional