Teaching children the basics of electricity and electronics isn't easy. It's tough to explain circuits, polarity, and conductivity without the benefit of hands-on projects, but soldering wires is not exactly an ideal activity for kids. Shaping clay, however, is right up their alley. Someone should really try to bring these two seemingly separate worlds together. Oh wait, someone already did.
The Squishy Circuits Hardware Kit may very well be the best place to start when first teaching kids how electronics work. The kit includes LED lights, a small motor, a battery pack and a few electronic buzzers, as well as the recipes for conductive and insulating dough.
The first step is to make the two batches of dough, so right from the get go, kids are interested. Next you install four batteries into the pack. That's it for the prep work. From that point on, by combining the different components in various ways, they can make lights shine, buzzers buzz, and motors spin. To top it off, they will gain an understanding of why these things are happening and realize that science kind of rocks.
Squishy Circuit Hardware Kits, $25
(Images: Squishy Circuits. Via: Make)