Kids' All-Time Favourite Workshops: Windmills, Skyscrapers & Lighthouses

Ask any of our regulars to name their favourite project and you'll almost always hear one of these three. They've become studio classics for a reason: each one turns a big, grown-up idea — engineering, architecture, navigation — into something a child can hold in their hands by the end of the class.

Windmills that actually spin

This is the one kids talk about for weeks afterwards. Before anyone touches the cardboard, we talk about what a windmill actually does: how it has helped people for centuries to grind grain and pump water, and why the wind is what sets it working.

Then comes the real challenge. Each child engineers their own windmill from cardboard, and the goal isn't just to make it look right — it's to make the sails actually turn. They test, adjust and problem-solve until the blades catch the air and spin freely on the hub. Nothing beats the moment a windmill a child built with their own hands starts turning with one puff of breath.

Skyscrapers: racing for the sky

Every studio has a corner of kids obsessed with height, and this workshop is built for them. We look at the tallest buildings in the world — how they're engineered to stand up straight, taper towards the top, and balance on a small footprint — before each child designs and builds their own tower.

Working with card tubes, paper and paint, children learn a real structural lesson: a tall, thin tower needs a wide, stable base or it topples. They experiment with proportion, add architectural details like cornices and windows, and finish with bold paint — golds, blues, whatever colour their dream skyscraper needs. It's a favourite with our older kids especially, who love the challenge of building something that actually stands up on its own.

Lighthouses: guiding ships home

We round things off with a project that's part building, part storytelling. We talk about why lighthouses exist, how their bold stripes and flashing lights guide ships safely home, and why every lighthouse has its own distinct pattern so sailors can tell them apart.

Children stack and secure paper cups into a tall, sturdy tower, then paint on their own bold red and white stripes before topping it off with a little lantern room. It's a wonderful lesson in structure, pattern and colour — and every child leaves with a lighthouse standing steady enough to keep the ships in their imagination safe for years to come.

Why these three keep winning

Windmills, skyscrapers and lighthouses ask kids to do more than decorate — they have to plan, balance, test and rebuild when something doesn't work. That's exactly the kind of hands-on problem-solving we love building a whole class around, and it's why, project after project, these three keep coming out on top as everyone's favourites.