Makeshop™

A creative space to play with ideas, explore materials, and tinker with tools.

Children's Museum of Pittsburgh

Simple machines in MAKESHOP

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I recently had the opportunity to work with a kindergarten class from the Environmental Charter School.  We had a partnership with them that created a residency for two of our teaching artists to visit the school to plan and co-teach lessons.  Nick and I were asked to help with the first grade and a kindergarten classroom.  Nick helped the first…

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Teenagers and Shopbots

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The Museum sees a lot of visitors every week.  Most of them are under five years old, but every week during the school year, a group of 6-8th grade students visit the Museum for our after-school program, YouthALIVE! These students visit MAKESHOP about once a month. We try to give them design challenges to help them to be creative and…

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On the Edge of Your Seat

At the end of last month, Children’s Museum Board Members gathered at the Museum for a Board retreat.  How do you get to know your fellow Board Chairs? By dividing into teams and having a “chair” contest of course! A MAKESHOP Challenge was presented to the group:  Divide into teams of six and create a meaningful chair using a container…

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Building a chair with the Board

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Messy tables, goofy chairs, and lots of smiles… We held our annual Board Retreat for our Board Members and Directors of the Museum on October 24.  The MAKESHOP team challenged them to “create a place to sit” using found and recycled materials.  Everyone was split into four teams with one Teaching Artist to serve as a coach and spent thirty…

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