"55 playful experiments that encourage tinkering, curiosity & creative thinking"--Cover.

Includes bibliographical references (page 216).

PREPARE -- 1. Creating Your Tinkerlab -- Tips for Clearing Children's Clutter / Jillian Maxim -- What Nursery Schools Can Teach Us about Creative Invitations: An Interview with Nancy Howe -- 2. Tools for Tinkering -- 3. Ten Tinkerlab Habits of Mind -- EXPERIENCE -- 4. Design -- Oh No, That's Not Creative! / Jessica Hoffmann Davis -- Circle Games -- Peel and Stick -- Glue, Glue, Glue -- Mark Outside the Box -- Watercolor Exploration -- Yes, You Can Paint on That! -- Monoprints -- Bubble Prints -- Drawing Games -- Draw What You See -- Art Dice -- Paint Experiments -- Paste Paper -- Ten Lessons the Arts Teach / Elliot Eisner -- Marbleized Paper with Paint and Oil -- Plexiglas Painting -- Foam Plate Relief Prints -- Collage Painting -- Finding Your Five-Year-Old Self in the Art Museum by Margie Maynard -- 5. Build -- The Value of Loose Parts: An Interview with Susan Harris MacKay -- Gumdrop Structures -- Hanging Structures -- Straw Rockets -- Marble Runs: Ramps and Gravity -- Paper Houses -- Scrap Building -- Ropes and Pulleys -- CD Spinner -- Does It Float? -- Pounding Nails -- Take Things Apart -- Drawing Machine -- DIY Robot -- DIY Kids: Building Tomorrow's Innovators through Hands-on Making / Grace Hawthorne --

6. Concoct -- Yes, and ... How to Improvise with Children: An Interview with Dan Klein -- Potion Station -- Goop -- Marker Explosions -- Make Your Own (Semiedible) Paint -- Slime -- Ice and Salt Exploration -- Ice Cream in a Jar: An Edible Investigation -- Frozen Carbon Dioxide -- Yeast and Sugar Expansion -- Naked Egg Experiment -- Homemade Butter: An Edible Investigation -- Lemon Invisible Ink -- Glittery Egg Geodes -- Natural Dyes -- Kitchen Challenge: An Edible Investigation -- Concoctions in a Michelin-Starred Kitchen: An Interview with Bruno Chemel -- 7. Discover -- How to Set Up a Discovery Area: An Interview with Parul Chandra -- Playdough Building -- Cloud Dough -- Pounding Flowers -- Scavenger Hunts -- DIY Light Box -- Photograms -- Ephemeral Installation -- Shadow Investigations -- DIY Lava Lamp -- Mystery Bag -- The Benefits of Basic Materials / Jennifer Winters.