"Open-ended" workshops encourage the use of imagination and problem solving skills. Learning is accomplished as children experiment in a spontaneous and unstructured environment. Intellectual development expands with the opportunitues to solve problems and test hypothesis. Feelings of competence and control build self-esteem.

When left to their own devices, most children do what educators label "open-ended" play. Adults watch and can remember back to the days when brooms became wild horses and towels were transformed into capes for superheros. At Resource Depot, old packing materials combined with lots of imagination become robots, remote control vehicles, and even a swimming pool complete with diving board.