Welcome back to Summer Wonder at Home Creativity Challenges! Every Monday until August 31, there will be a new challenge for you to build, create, design or discover with your family using materials you have at home. Today, we’re going to create a time machine! Are you ready to travel through time and space? Let’s go on an adventure!

Have you ever wished you could go explore a different time period in history? Wouldn’t it be cool to go back in time and see a specific day or event? Or maybe you want to see the future and visit other solar systems many light years away. Take a moment to think about when or where you want to visit. The Jurassic era, to get up close to dinosaurs? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world? August 28 in 1963, to listen to Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his famous speech? The great thing about making your own time machine is that it can go anywhere you imagine!

But first you have to build it! Here are some questions to think about:

• What is it made of? Is it really big or teeny tiny? Famous time machines in books, movies and TV shows come in all shapes and sizes: a tree house, a car, a school bus, a necklace, even a telephone booth!
• How is it powered? How do you go backward or forward in time? Do you drive it with buttons and gears, or do you have to type a secret code?
• Is there room to bring a friend along for the ride? Where would you put your snacks? 
• Draw your design, also called a blueprint. Can you build it life size using whatever you have at home? Or a smaller version of the one you imagined? Use blankets and pillows, cardboard boxes and newspapers, Lego and modelling clay, you name it!

 

So which time period in history do you want to visit? Who was a famous person you would like to meet? Which planets would you like to explore? The library has tons of books to use as your travel guides through time and space!

 

Ancient Egypt: An Interactive History Adventure by Heather Adamson

China: Land of the Emperor's Great Wall by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce

Shaka Rising: A Legend of the Warrior Prince by Luke W. Molver

The Thrifty Guide to Ancient Rome by Jonathan Stokes and David Sossella

The Space Adventurer's Guide: Your Passport to the Coolest Things to See and Do in the Universe by Peter McMachon

 

Parents and caregivers, you can join in on the time travelling! Make up a short story together about your adventure and write it down. Or take a picture of your time machine and share it with the Toronto Public Library on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. You can use the hashtag #TPLSummerWonder.