The Take-Apart Table — What's Inside?

A broken or unwanted mechanical object is unscrewed and opened up, piece by piece, to find out what is inside and how it worked. Slow, absorbing, and driven entirely by “what’s under this bit?”

  1. Choose a safe thing to open. Best are simple mechanical items with visible screws and no mains electronics: a wind-up clock, a push-along toy car, a ballpoint pen, a hand whisk, an old torch, a computer keyboard, a retractable tape dispenser. Remove batteries and cut off any power cord first.
  2. Prepare it. Loosen each screw a half-turn yourself so a child’s hands can finish the job, and put on eye protection (sunglasses work).
  3. Predict before opening. Ask “What do you think is inside? What makes it go?” Let the child draw a guess.
  4. Unscrew and open, slowly. The child does the turning. No smashing or prying — if something will not come apart, you look for the hidden screw together.
  5. Lay the parts out. Put each piece in a tray or muffin tin as it comes off. Wonder aloud about them — “What might this spring have been doing?” — without lecturing.
  6. Look back. Compare the insides with the drawing. Ask what surprised them, then keep the best parts for building or art and bin the rest.

Variation: No-tools version — take apart things that unscrew or pull apart by hand: a click pen, a torch, a pepper grinder, a Russian doll, a ring binder. Put-it-back challenge — reassemble a pen or torch and see if it still works.

Requirements

  • Space: A table with good light, away from younger siblings
  • Surface: A tray or old towel on the table so screws do not roll away
  • Materials: One broken or unwanted mechanical object (batteries and cord removed); a small screwdriver; a tray or muffin tin for parts; sunglasses or safety goggles; paper and pencil
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child
  • Supervision: Constant — adult checks the object beforehand, stays at the table throughout, and handles anything stuck or sharp

Rationale & Objective

“How does it work?” is one of the most common things 5-year-olds want to know, and taking something apart answers it with their own hands rather than with an adult’s explanation. Research on tinkering in museums and makerspaces (Bevan, Gutwill, Petrich & Wilkinson, 2015) describes the learning in terms that match this subdomain closely — engagement, initiative and intentionality, social scaffolding, and development of understanding — and found these are visible when children direct their own work with real materials. Take-apart activities are an established early-years practice: Science World’s take-apart resource was developed and tested with preschool and kindergarten educators and lists clocks with large gears among the objects to open. The activity also has persistence built in — a stubborn screw or a hidden clip is a real obstacle with a real reward behind it, which is what Head Start ELOF Goal P-ATL 7 (child persists in tasks) and Teaching Strategies GOLD Objective 11b describe. In the Reggio Emilia tradition, real tools and real objects are offered to children as materials worth investigating, with the adult as co-researcher rather than instructor.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: wants the adult to open it; turns the screwdriver the wrong way or lets it slip out; interested in the finished pile of parts more than the process; stops at the first stuck screw
  • Developing: undoes loosened screws independently; keeps going for several minutes; names parts by look (“a curly wire”); asks “what’s this?” about pieces
  • Proficient: works for 10 or more minutes, searches for hidden screws when stuck before asking for help, sorts parts as they come off, and offers ideas about what a part did (“the spring pushes the button back”)
  • Advanced: predicts what will be inside from experience with earlier objects, traces how one part moved another, tries to reassemble simple items, and asks to investigate how other things at home work

Safety Notes

  • Never use anything that plugs into the wall and has a screen or holds a charge — no televisions, monitors, microwaves, cameras with a flash, or power supplies. When unsure, choose something purely mechanical
  • Remove all batteries first, especially button cells, which are dangerous if swallowed; throw away any item with a leaking or swollen battery
  • Wear eye protection — springs and clips can fly out; the adult should release any spring under tension
  • Check for sharp metal edges and broken plastic as the casing opens, and take those pieces away
  • Small screws and parts are a choking hazard for younger children; count the screws in and clear the table fully afterwards
  • Agree a clear rule that things are taken apart only at the take-apart table with a grown-up, never household items on their own

Hints

  • Playfulness: set it up as a repair shop or “machine hospital” with a patient on the table — “Doctor, we need to see what’s wrong inside this clock.” Give the screwdriver a place of honour
  • Sustain interest: keep a box for broken things waiting their turn and ask friends and charity shops for old clocks and mechanical toys. Save the best gears and springs in a “parts library” jar
  • Common mistake: doing the hard bits yourself to speed it up, or explaining every component. Loosen screws beforehand, then let the child be slow. “I don’t know what that part does either — what do you think?” is a perfectly good answer
  • Limited space: a click pen on a dinner tray is a complete take-apart — five parts, one spring, no tools, and it can be put back together
  • Cross-domain: screwdriver work builds wrist rotation and grip (fine motor); sorting parts by type and counting screws (classification, numeracy); gluing leftover parts into a robot collage (art); drawing the insides (representation)
  • Progression: hand-unscrewed objects (pen, torch) → one-screw objects with large parts (toy car) → objects with gears (wind-up clock) → predicting and drawing the insides first → reassembling something so it works again

Sources

  • Bevan, Gutwill, Petrich & Wilkinson (2015), “Learning through STEM-rich tinkering: Findings from a jointly negotiated research project taken up in practice,” Science Education, 99(1)
  • Science World (Vancouver), Big Science for Little Hands — “Take-Apart” early-years activity resource and safety guidance
  • Gadzikowski, A. — Robotics for Young Children: STEM Activities and Simple Coding (Redleaf Press)
  • Head Start ELOF — Approaches to Learning, Goals P-ATL 7 (child persists in tasks) and P-ATL 11 (curiosity about the world)
  • Teaching Strategies GOLD — Objectives 11b (persists) and 11d (shows curiosity and motivation)
  • Reggio Emilia approach — real materials and the adult as co-researcher