Why MakerKids?
The #1 accelerator of human potential.
Invest In Children’s Future Career Success - High Employment of Grads
- Kids learn the skills of the future, including 21st century skills, core concepts of Coding, Robotics, Engineering and more.
- CEOs say that schools don’t adequately prepare kids for careers
- The careers of tomorrow do not exist today; with our support and guidance, today’s children will be prepared for anything!
Expand Kids’ Answers to “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
- Studies show that kids decide between ages 7-12 whether or not they’ll consider careers in STEM.
- STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
- The key is for kids to have a positive experience with STEM… and to build confidence.
- Our country has a shortage of tech-trained workers.
- STEM jobs are key to increasing innovation and GDP.
- Not to mention… Some STEM jobs pay double the national wage.
- Kids get excited about STEM with us
Best-in-Class, Award-Winning Programs
- MakerKids was named Best Kids’ Workshop by Toronto Life Magazine
- One of the top ten birthday party places by Today’s Parent.
Astonishing Results
- Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the founders of Google all had exposure to tech as kids.
- MakerKids graduates have been featured on TV and in magazines, started businesses, won prizes from NASA, and more.
- Our programs transform the way children see the world, the future, and their own potential.
- A child with apraxia (a low range of vocabulary) went from a below-average range of vocabulary to an above-average range of vocabulary within a year of our Minecraft programs.
- Parents have reported improved marks, behaviour and mental health.
- Our CEO coded a website at age 12 that ended up going viral and being featured in a magazine, which helped her get through some bullying she was experiencing at the time and realize she could be a leader – our goal is to provide experiences like this for more kids.
We Use Technology as a Medium to Build Social-Emotional Skills
- We don’t just teach tech – we use it as a medium to nurture confidence, social skills, and resilience through our snack chats, curriculum and more.
- Mental health professionals refer kids to us because of the positive results they have seen with their clients.
- MakerKids’ CEO was awarded an honorary degree from Humber College for her work in this area.
- MakerKids parents reported significant improvements in their children: 72% improvement in computer skills, 75% increase in creativity, 75% improvement in social skills and 100% boost in confidence!
- Kids have gone from having emotional or academic difficulties to leading clubs, improving their marks, and taking on more responsibility and ownership at home.
- “MakerKids is a cool place where it’s cool to be smart.” – Massimo Banzi.
A Place for Quirky Kids to Make Friends
- Kids feel like they fit in with this community of like-minded peers and feel a sense of belonging.
- Kids make friends, learn conflict resolution skills, and collaborate to build amazing projects.
- No need to worry about kids dragging their feet to get to programs or camp – kids love it!
- In our weekly program, kids come at the same time each week – allowing them to build deep friendships with the other kids in their class and their instructor(s).
- “My boys flourish here and look forward to it every week. They show social skills improvement and more confidence since coming to MakerKids and finding their “tribe.” – Tammy Isbell
Kids have so much fun they don’t realize how much they are learning
- We start with block-based coding and don’t just focus on text-based coding which can be difficult for kids who are also learning typing.
- Improv games throughout the day
- Kids develop a life-long love of learning and become more engaged at school.
Kids Develop a Positive Relationship with Technology
- Many parents outsource their children’s screen time to us.
- We help kids move from being consumers to creators.
- We teach kids about internet safety and self-regulation around technology.
Kids Use Industry-Leading Tools
- Our curriculum experts have hand-picked platforms that maximize both learning and fun.
- We also focus on starting kids off learning the general principles of coding rather than learning one specific language – most universities have gone in this direction as well, knowing that the coding languages of today may not be relevant tomorrow.
- These aren’t just exercises – kids get to make real projects and see the results of their work by creating video games, websites, 3D designs, robotics projects, and more.
- For example, as part of our Robotics curriculum we use Arduinos, the same microcontrollers that were used to prototype the Square credit card reader and the Pebble smart watch.
- The CEO of Arduino is on our Board of Advisors.
- As part of our Coding programs, we use a platform that was used to make some of the top games in the App Store.
Expert-Written & Time-Tested Curriculum
- We’ve written curriculum for Intel, Mozilla, 3D Systems, Queen’s University, and City of Toronto summer camps.
- Our team has backgrounds in engineering, entrepreneurship, Singularity University at NASA, teaching and more.
- MakerKids’ curriculum has been refined over 7 years.
- Our CEO was selected for the OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) Professional Advisory Committee.
- Our curriculum is project-based and interest-driven.
Experienced, Vetted & Highly Trained Instructors
- Kids learn from NASA-educated entrepreneurs, teachers and engineers.
- Instructors are police-checked, triple reference-checked, first-aid trained, and go through extensive training.
- They have incredible backgrounds in technology and working with kids, e.g. the Ontario Science Centre, and more.
- We only select around 1 in every hundred job applicants, through a 7-step interview process.
- We’ve also trained school boards and teachers on how to teach STEM.
Instructor:Child Ratio
- We maintain a 1:8 or better instructor to child ratio
- Some other places have drop-in programs which makes this impossible to achieve
World-Renowned Programs
- Our CEO has been invited to give talks at industry-leading conferences (e.g. Maker Faire, MakerCon, SXSW, etc) in Rome, NYC, California, Norway and more.
- Wired says we “encourage creativity and confidence”.
- Our CEO was selected for the Singularity University program at NASA (from over 3000 applicants), where she learned to apply exponential technologies to education.
Recognized by Industry and School Boards
- We’ve partnered with Google, Twitter and more and run workshops for them.
- The Director of Education at Intel said: “I think that MakerKids is doing some outstanding things for kids. Let’s get more kids into making.”
Best-In-Class Standards. Accredited and Safe
- You may be surprised to know that some technology camps do not even police-check their instructors.
- With MakerKids, you don’t have to worry – as an Accredited member of the Ontario Camps Association, MakerKids follows over 200+ best-in-class safety standards.
- Feel good about sending children here. We know how special kids are, and we take care to protect and look after them in accordance with the highest standards of care.
- Here are some examples of our many standards: we don’t allow nuts at our locations, we police check all our instructors, and we have an ID-based sign-out policy.
Parent-Recommended
- Many clients hear about us from a friend’s recommendation.
- 9/10 parents surveyed recommend our programs.
- Some families have come from as far as the Carribean to attend our camps!
Industry Pioneer
- MakerKids started the first makerspace for kids in the world.
- MakerKids was the first mover in this space, and created the category – now in addition to going to after-school programs on art, music, dance and sports, kids go to technology after-school programs.
- Accept no imitations – MakerKids is the original and leading concept.
Great for Kids with ADHD, on the Autism Spectrum, and/or with Learning Disabilities
- We welcome all audiences to MakerKids and have special training for our staff on these topics.
- Some parents tell us they are using our programs as a form of high-tech arts therapy for their child!
- MakerKids’ CEO was recently invited to give a TEDx talk about this.
Call us at 1-844-MAKERKIDS to book your camp, program or party today!
Looking for help? Get in touch with us
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