Alex is obsessed with origami these days. She likes to make the same thing over and over: a fleet of dozens of swans, for instance, in rainbow-colored families. (She cuts a piece of origami paper in quarters to make the babies.)
Her favorites are mostly the easy things she knows by heart, but check out this kangaroo:
(Actually, she informs me that she’s memorized the instructions for that one as well.)
She’s also started inventing her own designs. I don’t know – this may be something that most origami-loving kids do, but although I developed a fair amount of folding skill as a teenager, I would have been lost without instructions. It never occurred to me to try. Her solo designs aren’t anything spectacular, but they really are original combinations of folds – not just modifications of designs in our books. This one, which stands up by itself, she calls “chapel”:
This is a visuospatial kid, for sure. In ways I never was. She wants “an engineering kit” for Christmas – any ideas?
?
Maybe one of slightly more complicated mechanised meccano type sets?
Zelda, an online search led me to this. It’s hard to know how she’d feel about something where the packaging and choice of models screams “FOR BOYS” so loudly, because although she is a tinkerer and perhaps a future engineer, she is also really girly. On the other hand, something like Goldieblox… just NO.
I saw these paper coasters for sale awhile back in a science museum’s gift shop and really wanted them but knew they’d be a little too much with the fine motor skills for my boys, but paper + engineering sounds like it might be right for Alex:
http://www.paperrollercoasters.com/products.htm
There’s a cool section about origami in the book Here’s Looking at Euclid, by the way. For you, that is.
What about something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-ENG-M09-Engino-Structures-Bridges/dp/B005FYLE06/ref=sr_1_16?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1353041958&sr=1-16&keywords=engino ? Build a house and several different kinds of bridges… There are also lots of Engino kits that focus on one specific thing – pulleys, wheels, levers etc. Or the Thames & Kosmos Physics kits? We’ve liked the stuff we have from them.
It only just occurred to me that if you don’t know about the Naked Scientists’ Kitchen Science Experiments webpage, you want to:
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/kitchenscience/
Lots of explicative try-that stuff, with full-on science commentary and explanations.
The kits from Bridge Street Toys look pretty nice, but maybe more architecture than engineering. Are the friendly-looking orange and practical metallics of the Pro toolbox any better gender-wise than that Engino kit? It’s more sophisticated mechanically, but that’s more fun anyway. (Looks like Meccano is all about the media tie-ins right now rather than awesome construction kits. What is it with these companies? Also I am trying to pretend that pink toolbox does not exist.)
Oh good grief that second link? NO! PLEASE NO!
I found THIS link – http://www.hobbyengineering.com/SectionXP.html which might be useful. There is also the good old Meccano set (www.meccano.com).
I don’t think Alex is at all the right audience for GoldieBlox. On the other hand, I’m getting them for my youngest niece for Christmas. Like Alex, she is very visuospatial. However, she’s growing up with very thorough reinforcement of gender norms. GoldieBlox will at least give her some reinforcement of those skills in a context that she’ll accept and that her parents will deal with.
We gave our origami-obsessed next door neighbor this book, and it was his favorite for years. All of the creations are by the author and he encourages folks to make up their own. http://www.amazon.com/Origami-Astonish-Amuse-Jeremy-Shafer/dp/0312254040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354119494&sr=8-1&keywords=origami+to+astonish+and+amuse
OMG Molly! I wish I had asked your advice before I bought something more pedestrian!