BRIGHT SPARKS PLAY LAB
Sensory Science Play
for tiny scientists ages 1-5 and their people
Spark Curiosity.
Build Brave Thinkers.
📍Mountain View, CA
UPCOMING EVENT:
FREE COMMUNITY PLAY LAB
Simple Machines Lab
Sunday, August 16 · Sylvan Park
9:30-10 AM
Sensory-Friendly Start
10–11:30 AM
Higher-Energy Toddler Engineering Lab
A hands-on engineering play lab where tiny scientists can experiment with simple machines, build their own creations, and see what happens. Toddlers can explore pulleys, levers, wheels, and ramps through movement, problem-solving, and plenty of open-ended play.
Building challenges will be available for children who want them, but there’s no single right way to do science play. Toddlers are welcome to build, test, repeat, observe, or simply follow whatever catches their curiosity. Is it the bubbles? It’s usually the bubbles.
Designed by Bright Sparks Fellow Sarina as her fellowship project, with the sensory science experience led by Fabi, our STEM educator.
This event is free, thanks to support from First 5 Santa Clara County. Optional take-home science kits and Bright Sparks shirts will be available for purchase, with proceeds supporting future sensory experiences in our community.
WHAT WE DO
Helping young children think bravely like scientists.
Bright Sparks Play Lab creates joyful, sensory-informed STEM experiences where young children can move, experiment, make a mess, try again, and follow their own ideas.
Children are invited to participate in ways that honor their bodies, their pace, and their curiosity, while families build connection and community alongside them.
At the heart of every lab, children experience:
Curiosity.
“What is your hypothesis?”
Discovery through their senses.
“What do you feel?”
Resilience.
“Scientists try again.”
WHAT TO EXPECT
Science that feels exactly like play.
Each Bright Sparks lab is designed for toddlers to explore with their whole bodies.
Children might climb through a movement course, rescue animals from ice, build with simple machines, mix bubbling potions, tell stories through sensory play, or spend twenty minutes pouring water between two cups. All excellent scientific work.
Activities and building challenges are available, but they are never compulsory. Children can jump in, watch first, repeat the same experiment, move between stations, or follow an idea we never planned for.
Caregivers stay and play alongside their children, with space to connect with other families, drink coffee, and see the learning happening inside the mess.
TWO VERY IMPORTANT LAB RULES
Follow your child’s curiosity.
There is no right way to play.
2. We don’t eat the science.
Tempting? Sometimes. Still science.
It’s science, disguised as joyful chaos. 🧪
SCIENCE SUNDAYS
Powered by Coffee + Muffins
We don’t joke about coffee. Or muffins.
REAL WORLD PARENTING WINS ⚡
“My son’s favorite lab is whichever one we did last. He was in the bath telling me that bubbles are made of soap and water.”
“The parents were PLAYING! They might have been having more fun than the kids today.”
“By letting my son play in ways I never would have chosen for him, he learned to trust himself. And his trust me deepened.”
SPARK NOTES
Bite-sized, OT-backed notes about playful science, big feelings, and life with tiny humans.
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