The Foundation for a Meaningful Life
Kindergarten - Grade 9 in Southborough, MA

Innovation Saturdays at Fay School

Join us for an Innovation Saturday on May 10!

Our hands-on workshops, designed for children ages 5-12, are a great way to learn more about engineering, creativity, and design. All workshops are taught by Fay faculty on the Fay School campus in Southborough. These courses are free, but advance registration is required and space is limited.

Curious about Fay's Creativity and Design Program? Learn more>>

Saturday, May 10, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

List of 3 items.

  • Elephants on the Bridge

    Can you build a bridge that will hold 21 elephants? In this hands-on STEM workshop inspired by the picture book Twenty-One Elephants…and Still Standing, children will use a range of materials to build a bridge, analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their designs, and learn how engineers use their knowledge of forces to build real-world structures.

    Instructor: Katie Buteau, Third Grade Teacher
    For Ages 5-8
    Limited to 10 Students

  • Designing for the Birds

    Join us for some bird-related engineering and design challenges as we read Michael Garland's Birds Make Nests and put our design thinking skills to work to design and build our own birds’ nests. Through this process, we’ll learn about some of the amazing ways that animals in nature put design principles into practice. We’ll work with a range of tools and art supplies to create projects that you’ll take home after a morning of creativity and fun!  
     
    Instructor: Willa Gustavson, Second Grade Teacher
    For Ages 5-8
    Limited to 10 Students

  • Introduction to Coding

    Learn the fundamentals of coding and how to create your own animations and games in this introduction to Processing, a free and flexible software sketchbook and coding language. We’ll also be working with LEGO SPIKE Prime sets to help students understand how to create a structured sequence of programming activities in a real-world context.

    Instructor: Xiaohu Zhao, Physical Science Teacher
    For Ages 9-12
    Limited to 10 Students

Parking and Details

Please park at Brackett House, located at 31 Main Street, Southborough, MA.
 
Check-in will take place inside Fay's Root Academic Building at the Center for Creativity & Design. Signs will be placed on campus to direct you to the check-in area. Please arrive 10 minutes before the workshop's scheduled start time. Click here for a campus map.

After check-in, the workshop instructors will take children and their parents/guardians to the classroom where the workshop will take place. Parents/guardians will then be dismissed, but will return to the classroom at the conclusion of the workshop to pick their child up.
Meet Our Faculty
Katie Buteau joined the Fay community as a third grade teacher in August of 2016. She earned her master’s degree in Elementary Education at Lesley University while simultaneously student teaching at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. In addition to teaching, Katie enjoys running, baking, and spending time with her daughters, Nell and Evie, and her husband, Joe, who teaches in Fay's Upper School!
Willa Gustavson joined Fay in 2022 as a second grade teacher and has been a member of the FaySummer camp staff since 2013. Willa holds a B.A in English with a concentration in English and French literature from Stanford University and a M.S. in elementary education with a concentration in elementary teaching from Northwestern University. 
Xiaohu Zhao holds bachelor's and master's degrees in science from the University of Michigan. He teaches eighth grade Physical Science at Fay, and he has also worked in Fay's English Immersion program. His favorite aspect of teaching at Fay is the opportunity to help students learn and love science and math. He believes learning science and math is more than memorizing formulas on the whiteboard - instead, he enjoys helping students explore and understand how physical science and math work through creative problem-solving. During his free time, Xiaohu loves to travel with his wife, who is also a teacher at Fay.
 

Register Now

48 MAIN STREET
SOUTHBOROUGH, MA 01772
main number 508-490-8250
admission 508-490-8201