One of our favorite Makerspace Activities is Take Apart Toys, an idea we got from the Tinkering Studio. We’ve done it in both the afterschool programs and in our Summer Programs, and our kids of all ages love it. Kids learn how to use different tools in this activity, but more importantly, they learn reverse engineering skills. They explore circuits and the movement of simple machines too!
In our program for older students, we made Frankentoys! Check out a few examples here:
The Learning Collaboratory 