How Kids Make the Most of DIY After School

The last three months have been a whirlwind of activity, color, and fun for us, here at DIY.

Our annual summer camp, Camp DIY, began with unmatched enthusiasm and the excitement only grew with weekly bootcamps, debate sessions, contests, and live workshops that kept our DIYers on their toes – every single day. In other words, it was pretty lit.

Undeniably, the highlight was definitely the sheer number of workshops and challenges created and hosted by DIYers themselves! We saw 9-year-olds teach skills to other kids (older and younger than them), and encouraged them to try things they’d never tried before. Consequently, we were so inspired by the initiative that we built a new feature into our app that would enable kids to create challenges of their own, post how-to videos, and share DIY projects with other kids – whenever they’d like. Don’t worry, every submission will go through a detailed review by our moderators to make sure they align with our safety guidelines! And we’ve made it really easy to use – here’s what it looks like:

Kids Teach Kids on DIY.org!

As #BackToSchool season rolls in, we’re looking forward to DIYers bringing their diverse experiences of schooling together – to create deeper, more meaningful learning experiences for each other!

Here’s how we see DIYers making the most of DIY after school!

Homework? Let’s get this party started!

DIY has over 500 hours of how-to videos and over 5000 projects across 150+ skills, for kids to try. Be it climate change, STEM, art history, arts and crafts, or home science – kids can explore our library or use our search feature to find learning resources and project ideas for any subject!

See? Alexis gets it.

This is the space where kids interact with each other over common interests in real time! Overall, when learning skills together, they learn faster and better.

These sessions are led by experts, mentors, and other DIYers themselves. In addition, live sessions on DIY are also comfortable spaces where kids share ideas, stories, or let’s say – their common love of the Harry Potter books!

Fun, right? RIGHT? Right.

Shortly since September began, we’ve already had 12 workshops that were hosted by kids on topics like anime, toy-making, drawing techniques, tattoo artistry, and video editing. And while it’s great to see kids from around the world organize these sessions – the responses are overwhelmingly positive too!

Go big or go home – and practice some more.

To illustrate: What is a Stereotype? Is Monarchy a good thing? Does slavery still exist? – these are just a few of the important questions that were discussed over the course of some very interesting debate panels in the past few weeks. So, quite naturally, we’re really looking forward to hearing some great, well-informed viewpoints in the months to come!

In general, #CreatorsGonnaCreate! Ever since the DIY Fair started on the 15th of August, it’s been in full swing and the creations that abound on our platform have been awe-inspiring. Not only stickers and fursonas but also original songs and covers, kids are creating some lovely art for each other! Most importantly, there is a spirit of constructive feedback and encouragement in the air.

Since all work and no play can make a dull kid out of anyone – kids on DIY are taking up every opportunity to cultivate new interests after school. For example, here are some cool exercises to try at home. Stepping out of your comfort zone vis a vis your creativity? DIYers learn 6 new skills every month! Case in point – Ventriloquism! Need we say more?