You’d think that a five-year-old couldn’t build anything more complicated than a stuffed bear at the mall, but tiny hands are actually capable of building musical instruments, foosball tables — and amazingly, even wooden bridges (check out the video below).
With ample adult supervision, youngsters are wielding hammers, saws and drills at ConstructionKids in Brooklyn, NPR reports. Children as young as two have participated in the building classes. Those worried about kids handling tools should note that no serious injuries have occurred in the five years the program has been around.
ConstructionKids has only grown since since its launch. Founder Deb Windsor tells NPR 12,000 kids signed up last year alone.
“There’s just an incredible demand on the part of parents to have their kids do this kind of learning,” Windsor says, noting that her program is a way to drag kids away from the computer screen.
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As one parent of a five-year-old raves online, “My son loved building a miniature foosball table, a wooden maze, an action figure, a boat, a plane, among many others. He was so proud to show me each creation at the end of the day, and I loved that he was learning these valuable skills and getting to produce these things with his own hands.”
Even though our country is increasingly digitized and we should be cultivating the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, we also need kids who can tell the difference between a slotted screw and a Phillips head.
Besides, Facebook has never — and could never — build a 50-foot bridge as impressive as these 84 ConstructionKids second graders did in two hours.
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Thanks to the popularity of the program, Windsor is starting a nonprofit foundation so more schools can bring construction classes to their students.
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