The kids are taking a Monday morning class at Leonardo's Basement
http://www.leonardosbasement.org/.
This is one of the coolest places ever. You walk in the door, go down to the basement, and there is . . . well . . . stuff. Wheels, wood, metal, tools, feathers, cardboard, motors, pianos, magnets, spools, plastic bits, nails, bells, boxes, tape, screws. You name it, and it's probably there. Other projects that were sitting around waiting to be completed included a set of armor, an organ, robots, every kind of sculpture imaginable, and at least one Rube Goldberg machine. And speaking of Rube Goldberg machines, here's a video of one that someone at the workshop built:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh0etTSI9Dg.
There are only three kids in the 4-5 year old class, including my kids. W, the teacher, gave us a tour of the workshop, showed the kids where the tools were (the only things she told them not to touch were the utility knives. The four and five year olds were using saws and drills and assorted other tools generally associated with children well over the age of four.), and asked them what they wanted to build. K and M decided on airplanes. So W gave them a few suggestions, and showed them how to measure and cut wood for the body and wings, and hammer the pieces together. They started work on rollerblade-wheel landing gear, which will have to be completed next week. Also, M wants to glue missiles to his plane with a hot glue gun.
The planes look like the kind of thing you'd expect small children to create. But the thing is, the kids did most of the work themselves. The grownups helped a little with design suggestions, and with sawing and hammering when the kids got tired or weren't quite strong enough. But overall the kids designed and built them. And the kids run around the shop freely, looking at things and experimenting with stuff.
Maybe if I'd learned these things when I was four, I'd be better at building things today. I'm hoping my kids will learn that they can make lots of things by themselves if they learn how to work at it, and problem-solve, and try new ways of doing things if the first ten ways didn't work. The t-shirts at the place say Design<-->Build<-->Test (all in a circle with arrows leading back to the beginning). Leonardo's Basement is made for that.