Take Your Child to Work Day
GIANT Kids interacting with experts and exploring creative STEM fields
Each year, The Fourth Thursday of April is marked as Take Your Child to Work Day - this year it falls on April 28th. Even though it is a school day, parents are encouraged to take their children to work so they can explore the workforce, learn more about their parents’ professions, and see different roles required to run a business. If your company organizes special programs in your office on this day, we’d love to support them making this day an unforgettable one for your little ones. Send us an email demand@thegiantroom.com to plan! And if they are not, why not making this year the first year you start this tradition? We can help organize the most amazing activities for your kids to make the most out of this special day. Reach out to us. We can share with you so many ideas!
This day has a special meaning to me - growing up, some of my fondest memories are the days my dad took me and my brother to work. For our family, Take Your Child to Work Day was twice or even three times a week! My parents were very young (my mom was 20 and my dad was 24) when they had me, and my dad was an ambitious entrepreneur, so naturally it was up to us, kids, to integrate with their lives and not the other way around. I grew up constantly being exposed to different professions, and imagining myself in different roles, “playing” those roles, and internalizing how it felt to be an engineer, accountant, secretary, CEO, inventory manager, event manager, public speaker, or a cook.
Thinking back… here is how my thinking of these roles shaped throughout the years:
CEO - always in meetings, writing things down in a notebook (in 80s my dad didn’t have a computer on his desk yet!), signing papers constantly, and answering quick calls. CEO was my favorite role to play. I could literally sit down at a table in front of a bunch of papers, scribble on them pretending that I’m writing something important, and forcing my brother to be my secretary and bringing me papers to sign. I could not wait for all the other employees to leave and for my dad to call it a long night at work so we could play “conference” calls from one room to the other with my brother. As I grew up, I realized that the CEO does more than writing notes and signing random papers - they often think of the big picture, discuss strategies with the board, collaborate closely with all employees, and do whatever it takes to make things work and keep things on track! They also occasionally do a bit of what every single other employee does.. They may do a bit of accounting here and there, help with planning events, do some engineering on the side, visit the kitchen to make delicious food, and the list continues!
Cook - everyone’s favorite person in the office! This person brings so much joy to everyone during lunch time, and always has a cup of tea ready for you when you visit him in the kitchen. To this day, I LOVE cooking and I love to bring food and drinks to the office to share with my colleagues.
Accountant - dealing with so many numbers, and oftentimes off by a zero here and there. I thought their job was so much fun. I really liked math and it seemed the accountant is the only grown up who does math, but for some reason all the accountants I met weren’t that enthusiastic about what they do and made it sound like they have a boring job. I never understood but thought maybe math becomes boring when you become an adult…
Event manager - They are not always around but they magically show up with the most awesome energy when there is a special occasion or an expo to participate in! Everyone in the team looks up to them to make things work. They are so kind and friendly to everyone, even strangers, and cannot stop smiling. I dreamed of being them when I grew up and running so many magical events and knowing everyone who walks past me!
Inventory manager - the hardest job you could ever imagine! Why would someone even sign up for that?! They seemed to be super organized but always looking for something they cannot find, and constantly missing a thing or having too much of another thing. They also seemed to be good in math and deal with numbers - somehow they even seemed to enjoy it more than the accountrants. To this date, I’m pleasantly surprised when a GIANT team member volunteers to organize our inventory and say they “love to organize” things - I love working with them!
Engineer - everyone thinks of this person as the “smart” one, yet they seem to always break things! They get to play around with all sorts of tools (again this was back in the 80s and early 90s when sitting behind a computer all day wasn’t that of a norm even for an engineer), break things apart, put things back together and somehow eventually make things work better.
Both my brother and I went to the engineering school - exact same university and exact same degrees. I got really interested in the applications of technology to advance education and so ended up doing my graduate studies in education and cognitive studies. Fast forward a few years, I’m now CEO of The GIANT Room - the most magical place for kids where their ideas get built. My brother continued with engineering for his graduate studies and now is an artificial intelligence engineer working at Amazon.
I always wonder how my life would turn out to be if I were exposed to other types of professions as a child. My husband’s dad is an architect and so is he. A very good friend of mine is an artist and so is her dear aunt. Another friend is a doctor and so is almost everyone in their family. It’s not a secret that mentors and role models play an integral part in shaping who we are. In fact, there is tons of research on this topic. Role models motivate us to set and achieve ambitious goals by representing what’s possible and be a model for us as we aspire to reach new heights. Girls, whose mothers are working outside the home tend to be more successful in their own careers, earning 23 percent more than those whose mothers had not worked during their daughters’ childhoods. Diverse role models whome girls and underrepresented youth can identify with, help broaden the perspectives of who can work in the STEM fields such as urban ecology, computing, healthcare, and science, and expand youth’s perceptions of their own potential.
And that’s why at GIANT we take it very seriously to introduce kids to a diverse set of role models in all sorts of professions, and constantly invite them to create things inspired by their work. We even make it possible for them to actually interact with these professionals, whether through online workshops or in person events at our hub.
We have invited renowned artists like Heve Tullet, Jon Burgerman, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, Lexy Ho Tai, Ciena Malchione, and Alena Kuznetsova to join our programs, dream and create art with GIANT kids. We have invited NASA engineer, Will Morris, to join us online on the historic day of landing on Mars to celebrate that historic moment with GIANT kids. Tony award winner Jennifer Barnhart as well as Aliya Jo Ramey and Jesus Del Orden who have performed young Nala and young Simba at The Lion King Broadway show joined our online programs to celebrate GIANT kids shows and to give them feedback. Best selling children’s book authors Chris Cerf, Herve Tullet, and Beth Beckmand have joined us to write stories with GIANT kids. Toy designers Cas Holman, designer of Rigamajig toys, Anna Ly and Jason Moreno from LEGO, and Chloe Varelidi from Follies have joined us to design and build cool toys with GIANT kids. And on April 30th, Paul Zdanowicz, ex-creative director from Nickelodeon will join us to critique our next big Nickelodeon show.
We have turned “Take Your Child to Work Day” into an everyday adventure through our daily creative prompts, many of which introduce kids to diverse groups of professions from vastly different backgrounds, all doing super cool and interesting work. At the end of each daily video, there is always a creative prompt for kids to design and build something inspired by that profession so they can “dream” and “think” like them. GIANT members can also join us every day to learn and build awesome things inspired by these prompts, live online! Currently, your family can enjoy a free 30-day trial of this program.
And of course, our own team is one of the most diverse groups of educators and working professionals you could ever imagine - and that is not by accident. We have deliberately brought together an amazing team of engineers, programmers, artists, designers, scientists, improv artists, dancers, musicians, and teachers who collectively guide GIANT kids along their creative STEM journey. We inspire kids to constantly reflect on their interests and explore new ones, and we do everything in our power to connect them with experts who can then help them to not only discover new possibilities but also dive deeper in fields they are interested in.
So you can count on us if you’d like to make this “Take Your Child to Work Day” a special day for your employees. Reach out to us via email demand@thegiantroom.com to plan an amazing day at your office or online and create everlasting memories.