Children will explore, learn and tinker the day away during Saturday's DownTown TinkerTown, courtesy of the Texarkana Museums System.
With a home base at Discovery Place Interactive Museum and stretching along nearby city blocks, TinkerTown gives youngsters a fun way to enjoy make-and-take activities of all sorts, ranging from science to arts and crafts. It's free and held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Because of the threat of bad weather, TinkerTown may move indoors to Discovery Place and the Museum of Regional History. A decision will be made today about holding it indoors or outdoors, then posted to Facebook and Eventbrite.
"The overall concept is to sort of get kids to unplug from electronic devices and sitting at home on the couch. The most important thing is to get them to get their gears turning in their brains," said Velvet Cool, TMS board president.
They hope activities spark an interest in children who attend. To that end, activities get them moving and doing.
"We are going to go from the children's museum. We are just going to close off the Texas side between the Museum (of Regional History) and Discovery Place. We'll have the Texas-side fire department out there with the fire truck. We'll have the take-apart-car, the tinker car. We'll be doing pop rocks and pixie sticks out there, and we'll have a dismantling station," said Cool. That latter station is for anything that's broken at the museum, like photocopiers and phones.
"We'll have those there so kids can take those apart and see what they're made of," Cool said. The various stations will continue to Broad Street and in front of the Capitol One building, then down Broad to the caboose near Front Street Festival Plaza, then circle back on Broad.
"We're going to do things like solar ovens, making s'mores, mock stained glass," Cool said. Then there's her personal favorite: the toilet paper cannons, which use a leaf blower.
"The rope guy is coming back again this year," Cool said. This gentleman has a wonderful personality and a wooden contraption that creates a rope, she said. "You make a rope that is the size of a standard jump rope."
Verona Restaurant will demonstrate how to make pasta. The STEM department from Texarkana College will bring a "smorgasbord of experiments," Cool said. "We've got the Clinton Birthplace in Hope bringing activities for the kids to do. We're going to have a watered down version of the textile exhibit, the textile fair."
Blinky bugs, basket weaving, penny spinners, hummingbird feeders, animal hair identifications, calming bottles, popcorn boxes-these are just some of the other activities.
"We're going to have a scavenger hunt at the caboose," Cool said.
For some activities, they can be done by anyone, but Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts will have a chance to earn badges, the board president said. This year's TinkerTown has additional activities planned at the Texas-side farmer's market and at First United Methodist Church.
TinkerTown has grown this year. "We hope to grow it even more," said Cool, noting this year's event is being held a few weeks earlier to avoid the June heat. This year they also partnered with RailFest to hold it the same day, although RailFest moved to the Four States Fairgrounds because of the weather.
Children should register at Discovery Place to get an armband, and 250 gift tote bags will be distributed. Attendees can also register for door prizes. Maps of various tinkering spots will be available.
(RSVP at TexarkanaMuseums.org/TinkerTown, at the Facebook page or at Eventbrite. It's not required but gives the TMS an idea of how many people may attend. More info: 903-793-4831.)