You don’t need to know all the answers to explore engineering with your child. Your role is to stay curious, ask a few questions, encourage ideas, and let your child lead when possible.
You don't Need to Be and Engineer
No engineering background is required. You do not need to teach or explain everything. Exploring, wondering, and trying ideas together is enough.
Every Child Engineers Differently
Children ages 6–10 bring different interests, experiences, and approaches to engineering. Some children enjoy exploring materials and building through trial and error, while others may prefer planning, measuring, comparing designs, or explaining their ideas.
There is no single right way to participate. Your child can talk through an idea, draw a design, build a model, or record results. Choose the level of support and challenge that works for your family, and let the activity grow with your child’s curiosity.
Start with Their Interests
Choose an entry point that feels engaging to your child, such as a story, a real-world example, a picture, or jumping right into building.
Offer Support When Needed
Help with cutting, taping, measuring, or handling materials when needed, but leave space for your child to make decisions and test their own ideas.
Let the Challenge Grow
Start simple, then add complexity when your child is ready. Compare designs, measure results, record observations, or create a new version.
Engineering Is a Cycle, Not a Checklist
Engineering doesn’t have to happen in a straight line. Your family might start by building, pause to ask a question, test an idea, go back to imagining, or improve something several times.
You do not need to use every step in every activity, and the steps do not need to happen in the same order every time. Follow your child’s curiosity and use the parts of the process that feel useful in the moment.
Every part of the engineering process matters. Testing and improving are especially valuable opportunities to notice what happened, learn from it, make a change, and try again.
ASK
What are we wondering?
IMAGINE
What ideas could we try?
CREATE
Let’s make something.
TEST
What happens when we try it?
IMPROVE
What could we change?
What Children Practice Along the Way
Engineering gives children opportunities to practice skills that reach beyond building and designing. As families explore ideas together, children may also strengthen:
Creative Problem Solving
Thinking of more than one possible solution and trying different ideas.
Critical Thinking
Noticing what happened, comparing results, and thinking about why.
Persistence & Flexibility
Making changes, trying again, and learning when an idea doesn’t work as expected.
Communication & Collaboration
Explaining ideas, listening to others, asking questions, and making decisions together.
Try Asking
What do you think might happen?
Why do you think that worked?
What could you change?
What would you try next?
When Something Doesn’t Work
That’s part of engineering. Instead of fixing the design right away, encourage your child to notice what happened, make a change, and test again. Testing and improving are ways engineers learn.
What happened?
What did you learn?
What could you change?
Keep It Simple
You do not need to complete every activity perfectly or ask every question. Choose what feels natural for your family. What matters most is exploring, building, thinking together, and trying again.