the idea: give kids simple toys that they can actually create something out of i.e. blocks, legos, clay, paint

Now that my brain has finally had a bit of a break, I am working my way through Tony Wagner’s book Creating Innovators: The making of young people who will change the world.  It was when I was reading his section on Parenting Young Innovators that I thought of a picture I have just found while helping my mother clean out the basement.  In the picture, my first-grade self poses in front of a gigantic block tower with my grandfather and grandmother.

The Block Area was, by far, the most popular part of the classroom.  Day after day my classmates and I would sit down with the same rectangles, circles, squares, and other oddly-shaped pieces of wood and create brand new masterpieces.  On the playground we would do the same thing, except that instead of blocks we used sticks, stones, pieces of moss, and other bits of nature.  It was through these open-ended, imaginative activities that we learned how to construct our own worlds using nothing but what was around us.

In the book, Tony Wagner emphasizes the importance of unstructured time in young children’s lives.  Although this may seem questionable in the face of children who are piano virtuosos by the time they’re seven thanks to hours upon hours of precise practice, it is even more important.  When children (and adults) have a chance to create with basic materials, they end up making the most incredible things.

Why do you think I started a project like the Something City?