Toddler Tinker Storytime

Books and makerspace activities are a natural pair. When I worked at the Science Center of Iowa, my mentors there always did an amazing job of bringing books of all types (picture books, nonfiction pedagogical books, etc.) to makerspace workshops and professional development.

I've also been inspired by how the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium has creatively and meaningfully incorporated books with making and tinkering activities. Highly recommend their " Tinkering Library "!

When I began working at a library makerspace I was excited about the opportunity to pair makerspace activities with books and storytime programs. I teamed up with an amazing librarian to offer a "Toddler Tinker Storytime" program. They facilitated the storytime part of the program and always found delightful, wonderful books to pair with the makerspace activity I planned. Sometimes we planned the activity first, and then found a book to match it and sometimes we started with the book.

Here are some highlights and book pairings from this program:

The Artist + Cardboard City

I've previously written about how much I love doing open ended cardboard builds with makers. This book pairing was particularly fun because I intentionally built the cardboard city so that toddlers would be the size of the dinosaur in the book in comparison to the city, and they got to practice their artistic skills in the same way the character in the book did– by painting fun murals on the buildings. Kids loved this one and one family even recreated this activity at home.

Swim, Duck, Swim! + Water Play

This book follows a little duck as he learns to swim, and explores concepts like floating, sinking, and persistence. I offered two water-based activities to pair with this storytime. The first was a "water wall" activity from one of my favorite books - The Tinkering Workshop by Ryan Jenkins. In this activity, kids can experiment with pouring water over and through different materials to see what happens. Parents and adults loved this activity because they saw how accessible the materials were and felt that they could recreate it at home. I also provided a shallow (and closely supervised) tub of water with a variety of materials that float and sink so that kids could explore the same concepts they heard about in their storytime.

Poppys Family Patterns + Fabric Flags

This is a delightful book- both the illustrations and story are wonderful. In this story, the characters explore different kinds of patterns, fabrics, and how to create things with those materials. Kids created fabric flags by cutting out patterned fabric that matched some of the patterns they read about, and placing it onto a piece of fabric. The patterned fabric they cut already had some iron-on interfacing on the back so after they placed the fabric, I placed the whole thing in the heat press to stick it all together. Cutting was hard for this age group, I loved this book a lot but I'd probably consider a different activity in the future.

The Gabi that Girma Wore + Wet Felting

This book explored "the journey of a Gabi, a traditional Ethiopian cloth, from seed to harvest" and beautifully revealed how garments like this are made from processing the cotton from the plant, to spinning and weaving. We did a wet felting activity to explore the idea of how loose fluffy roving can be processed with soapy warm water to become a flat felt piece of artwork. Kids loved the act of wet felting and squishing/rolling the fibers to lock them together.

The Color Monster + Coloring

The Color Monster has a really fun and playful aesthetic with lots of scribbles, colors, and a pop-up version of the book. There's a monster character in the book who explores all kinds emotions and associates each with a different color. For this craft, big paper versions of the monster were prepared in advance, and then kids colored and scribbled to decorate the monsters. This age group really likes anything that involves coloring and painting!