The Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop | Make something of yourself.

Street Games of Africa

Learn the art of play using what you have – make toys and games with recycled materials, including a water bottle galimoto (a push car). Make instruments, dolls, tops, kites and boats inspired by the many traditions and designs of Africa. Learn that whatever our differences in geography and resources, play speaks across languages and cultures. Learn new games. Perhaps trade stamps and coins with new friends in Africa.

Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

African-Street-Games

The Pompidou Center

Paris finished building the Centre Pompidou in 1977. It is a remarkable building whose skeleton, ducts, and pipes are famously on its outside. Construct a miniature Museum with your own colorful inside out design. The Pompidou Center is France's national museum of modern and contemporary art. Its sculptures and paintings tell the story of the past two centuries of artistic invention. Create your own sculptures in the style of Brancusi, collages with the spirit of Matisse, and paintings with the play of Picasso. construct the landmarks of Paris visible from the windows of the Pompidou Center. Make the mimes, tourists, and the artists that make Paris one of the art capitals of the world.

The 7th in Making Art History series.

Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

pompidou

The Art and Play of Pokémon

Pokémon™ are many and complicated characters. Our experts have put together a course of study that will make sense to those who know little and challenge those who know much of the Pokémon lore. Build characters to see how they were first imagined. Follow stories as characters grow and change. Create traditional characters and your own characters to understand the rules that make their world make sense. Shape, assemble, paint, play.

By Julia Morrow, Dana Clough
Curators: Dan Morowitz, Monika Danielewicz

Pokémon™ characters and stories are copyrighted intellectual property. This workshop is a study of the characters.

Designed for ages 5, 6, 7 and 8

Pokemen

People of the Ice and Snow

Spend a week with our neighbors to the far, far north, the Inuit. Their ancestors and customs are ancient. They have learned to live in a world that is cold most months of the year. Build an Inuit house that uses the earth and sod to help keep it warm. Construct and clothe an extended family. Build a team of trusted dogs to haul your sled. construct an umiak, a light, agile boat they invented for hunting and transport. Like the Inuit, make art and tools with driftwood, stones and bones – the simple materials that their world provides. Learn new words and game from a distant culture.

Designed for ages 7, 8 and 9

INuit

Build Cars, Ready to Roll

We know cars well. They almost have personalities. Some are chatty; some are quiet. Some are powerful; some are timid. Some are beautiful; some are almost worn out. Construct cars with so much character they can tell stories. Shape, paint and trim a race car, a tow truck and others of your own design. Join the class in creating a loooong track to race and test your work. Design, paint, detail, play.

Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

Cars

The Theatre of Illusions

Pictures don't lie (usually). But perhaps your brain does. It can see things that are not there. Or not see things that are. Artists know this. Scientists know this. Construct a whole theatre of optical illusions to understand how colors, proportions, and shapes can fool us. Construct a praxinoscope whose mirrors will make your drawings move. Construct a curious room whose angles will make your wooden figures change size as you watch. Recreate the artist Marcel Dubhamp's experiments with spinning images. Learn classic tricks and create your own. Then, learn that these are not tricks, but windows through which we can watch the brain at work.

Special thanks: Dr. Marvin Chun, Visual Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Yale University.

Designed for ages 7, 8 and 9

Theatre-of-Illusion

The Sustainable Farm

What is a sustainable farm? It's a farm built with careful choices. It avoids unnecessary chemicals. It avoids long distance shipping. It chooses to respect its land, its plant, its animals, its people. Build a model farm with careful choices. Construct cows, sheep, ducks and chickens from wood cut from trees that have fallen on our land. Make all natural stains to color them. Construct a Barn from rescued barn siding. Build a small planter and plant vegetables to enjoy later in the summer. Preserve locally harvested food. A primer on the arts, traditions and science of making good food. Shape, detail, color, build, cook, plant, play.

Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

Sust-Farm

Electric Circus Circuits

The circus is about energy: clever ways to spin, balance, flip, swing and leap. Build a small circus that two batteries will bring to life. Power motors, magnets, propellers and lights with circus circuits that are designed for young experimenters. Costume and color your performers with paint, tissue, glitter and sequins. Construct, connect and coach your characters. Because, in engineering, as in the circus, practice is essential.

Designed for ages 7, 8 and 9

Electric Circus

Electric Dragons

Look at Dragons. They are made up of parts of reptiles, birds, mammals and imagination. Construct your own dragon whose tail sways, wings flap, eyes glow, voice roars and more; all by the no-longer magical power of two batteries. Part Science: learn the mechanics of motors and LEDs, in safe, simple circuits. Part Art: shape, color and texture wings, claws, tails and fangs. Hear the best of the classic dragon tales.

The fifth in our First Circuitsseries

Designed for ages 5, 6, 7 and 8

Chagall the Potter

100 years ago, just 25 years old, the artist Marc Chagall moved from his native Russia to Paris, the capital of modern art. Chagall brought a gift for powerful color and for telling stories. Chagall poured his art onto paper and canvas and into bronze and glass. With his friend, Picasso, he experimented with ceramics. Create tiles and figures in clay guided by Marc Chagalls vision and stories. Discover the science and art of his vibrant colors. Then develop your own style and color palette.

Designed for ages 7, 8 and 9

Chagall

Bravery

All important stories teach us how to be wise, and fair, and even brave. Build a Highland castle, a boat and a trusty steed. Construct lords and ladies to disagree a lot. Construct a mysterious monster someone must face. Then make a hero or heroine to take on the challenge. Heroes are not born, they are made. That's the story – the tests, and luck, and wise help, and choices that make a hero brave. Build and paint a castle, shape and clothe characters, make and fur a monster, tell legends, and play.

Designed for ages 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9

Brave

Micropottery: The Wheel

The potter's wheel is one of civilizations's first machines. It lets fingers sculpt and finish clay vessels precisely and efficiently. It produced containers to collect, store and prepare food and water. Use your own micro potter's wheel powered by batteries. Small pots speed drying time and allow a whole course of ceramics in a week. Make tools and a carrier. Fire and decorate your work.

Designed for ages 7, 8 and 9

Olivia-&-Etana-with-wheel

Re(ad)Joyce

The illustrator William Joyce (b.1957) has produced children's books, movies, and iPhone Apps that are changing the way we see the world. All the while he has stayed very close to how he saw the world when he was 5. In The World of William Joyce Scrapbook(© 1997), he tells (and shows) his story. Make your own Scrapbook. Explore his stories, and his love of monsters, dinosaurs, bugs and spaceships. Draw, paint in watercolor and construct characters like Joyce's and of your own invention. Make little people and mix them in with real toys. Build an All Important Rocket Pack to remind yourself that with imagination, you can travel anywhere. Learn from a master's story how to begin your story as an artist.

Designed for ages 5, 6, 7 and 8

Read-Joyce-figs

Sculpture Garden

For 1000 years, the Japanese have constructed gardens that are works of art. Yes, there are plants. But every stone, every bench, every figure, every shadow is arranged to sculpt a place of peace and beauty.

Create a tiny garden to collect your creations. Experiment with clay, wood, wire, paper and fibers. Then, use these materials to make your own sculptures to create a colorful, vibrant garden of your own.

Designed for ages 7, 8 and 9

Japanese-Sculpture-Garden

Olympics 2012: On Wheels

This will be the 2nd week of the 2012 Olympics in London. Three of our workshops will rival London's events in spectacle and scale. We will produce 1000 competitors, judges and spectators. We will create venues and pageantry. We will follow the news from London as we create our own.

Our youngest creator/competitors will each create a long distance runner, (on wheels), a soccer for field hockey player, (on wheels), a high jumper or pole vaulter, (on wheels). Construct a horse (on wheels) and rider. Choose your competition: dressage, eventing or jumping. Choose to make a table tennis competitor or martial artist.

Designed for ages 5, 6, 7 and 8

Olympics-on-wheels

Olympics 2012: On Water

This will be the 2nd week of the 2012 Olympics in London. Three of our workshops will rival London's events in spectacle and scale. We will produce 1000 competitors, judges and spectators. We will create venues and pageantry. We will follow the news from London as we create our own.

Our tweens will each create and train swimmers, a diver, a synchronized swimmer or water polo player. Build and sail a 4780 Class dinghy with its crew (men or women). Construct a men's or women's crew and a shell for them to row.

Designed for ages 7, 8 and 9

Sandcastle Machines and Art

Learn the arts of sand construction. Make the tools you will need, including trucks for carrying, grading and rolling sand. Collect measuring cups, molds, shovels and spatulas. collect tricks for artful building. Join the class in constructing grand castles; make the knights and kings and queens to rule them. Make a land of dikes and canals; make the boats to travel them. Master construction recipes from around the world including Dorodango, the Japanese Art of polishing mud balls.

Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

Leonardo Studio

Leonardo was a teacher. His many notebooks collect lessons, words and drawings…for himself and his apprentices. In this week-long studio, we will follow his instructions. Everyone – instructor and student – will collect drawings in a notebook. We will begin each day with an exercise Leonardo proposes to improve careful looking.

Then three separate groups will work on projects to introduce basic building skills. Next, each child will choose a workshop to concentrate on specific skills. Finally, each child will join a group that will collaborate on a project.

We will end the week sharing these projects.

Designed for ages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Leonardo Studio

Leonardo was a teacher. His many notebooks collect lessons, words and drawings…for himself and his apprentices. In this week-long studio, we will follow his instructions. Everyone – instructor and student – will collect drawings in a notebook. We will begin each day with an exercise Leonardo proposes to improve careful looking.

Then three separate groups will work on projects to introduce basic building skills. Next, each child will choose a workshop to concentrate on specific skills. Finally, each child will join a group that will collaborate on a project.

We will end the week sharing these projects.

Designed for ages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Leonardo Studio

Leonardo was a teacher. His many notebooks collect lessons, words and drawings…for himself and his apprentices. In this week-long studio, we will follow his instructions. Everyone – instructor and student – will collect drawings in a notebook. We will begin each day with an exercise Leonardo proposes to improve careful looking.

Then three separate groups will work on projects to introduce basic building skills. Next, each child will choose a workshop to concentrate on specific skills. Finally, each child will join a group that will collaborate on a project.

We will end the week sharing these projects.

Designed for ages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Leonardo Studio

Leonardo was a teacher. His many notebooks collect lessons, words and drawings…for himself and his apprentices. In this week-long studio, we will follow his instructions. Everyone – instructor and student – will collect drawings in a notebook. We will begin each day with an exercise Leonardo proposes to improve careful looking.

Then three separate groups will work on projects to introduce basic building skills. Next, each child will choose a workshop to concentrate on specific skills. Finally, each child will join a group that will collaborate on a project.

We will end the week sharing these projects.

Designed for ages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Leonardo Studio

Leonardo was a teacher. His many notebooks collect lessons, words and drawings…for himself and his apprentices. In this week-long studio, we will follow his instructions. Everyone – instructor and student – will collect drawings in a notebook. We will begin each day with an exercise Leonardo proposes to improve careful looking.

Then three separate groups will work on projects to introduce basic building skills. Next, each child will choose a workshop to concentrate on specific skills. Finally, each child will join a group that will collaborate on a project.

We will end the week sharing these projects.

Designed for ages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Leonardo Studio

Leonardo was a teacher. His many notebooks collect lessons, words and drawings…for himself and his apprentices. In this week-long studio, we will follow his instructions. Everyone – instructor and student – will collect drawings in a notebook. We will begin each day with an exercise Leonardo proposes to improve careful looking.

Then three separate groups will work on projects to introduce basic building skills. Next, each child will choose a workshop to concentrate on specific skills. Finally, each child will join a group that will collaborate on a project.

We will end the week sharing these projects.

Designed for ages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12