Over twenty early educators and directors from Nanjing, China, joined us in the Lesley makerspace for a daylong workshop on making in early childhood. Hosted by Lesley Associate Professor and Director of the Early Childhood Education Program, Yvonne Yihsing Liu-Constant, the group engaged in hands-on making projects throughout the day.

The educators engaged in a variety of making projects, including a Novel Engineering challenge, Recycle Bots, and designing a Bee-Bot city. A highly collaborative and creative group, they tackled these challenges by truly modeling our three guiding principles: having “hard fun”, talking out loud, and asking three peers before asking a facilitator. The teams also engaged in a deliberate design process, mindful of small details in creating solutions to the problems at hand. A group working on Recycle Bots crafted three distinct components to model a Chinese Lion Dance (see video below), including integrating appropriate music for their presentation. We were honored to share in this delegation’s highly creative and collaborative making experience.