We kicked off our unit by attending a Robot Block Party hosted by a venture capitalist company in Palo Alto.
This was so much fun! E and R got to see and interact with all kinds of different robots, including the red and black robotic arm that inspired Baymax and the movie Big Hero 6. They asked the roboticists questions, maneuvered some bots themselves and learned the many functions of robots in the world today.
If you don't live near Silicon Valley where these kinds of opportunities are available, you could consider looking into a nearby college or university to see if there are any robotics classes or professors who would be willing to show off some of their bots. Some high schools have robotics classes too and might be willing to show your kids some stuff.
To study robotics, here are the main books we used:
Robots
Robotics: Discovery the Science and Technology of the Future
These books together give a great, easy to read overview of robotics, including what robots are, the history of robots, the various kinds of robots and some of the ways in which robots are used. That second book, Robotics, includes a number of projects to do as well, many of which are about building robots from materials you may have on hand at home. We didn't actually use those projects because even though they are pretty simplified in terms of robotics, I still didn't understand them enough to pull them off well with the kids. (Science, including robotics, is not my strong suit!)
Instead, we used this solar robot kit which was so simple that my 6-year-old was able to figure out how to assemble the robots mostly on her own. We did solicit the help of my husband at first, but after building the first bot together (a solar car), she was able to put together the five other bots in the kit by herself which included this robot puppy and robot windmill.
We had science and history covered so far in this unit but I also wanted to bring in some language arts, so here's a look at some of the other things we did:
To learn about idioms, I found this fun Robot Idiom Puzzle Match-up Activity for only $1.50 on Teachers Pay Teachers. Instead of teaching E idioms with just some worksheet, this was hands-on and she had a good time pairing the proper parts of the robot.
Also on Teachers Pay Teachers, I bought Robotic Oxymorons. Once again, this was hands-on grammar and fun for E to do!
E and R also got to invent and illustrate their own imaginary robots then write a Cinquain poem about them with this robot writing activity. I also had them write a short story about their robots to practice their letters, sentence, paragraph and story structure.
We always do a separate math curriculum (RightStart Math) and don't usually include math in our actual units. But I found these fun robot math activities, so we used them too. : )
What's My Rule?
Robot Regrouping
Measurement - Gallon Robot to the Rescue!
Just for fun, I had these stacking robots on hand that the kids played with on and off throughout the unit, including when I was reading to them about robotics and they needed something to do with their little wiggles. : ) These mosaic robots were great for that too.
We also played Robot Memory similar to this FREE one.
And as usual, we had plenty of books on robots - fiction and non-fiction - laying around for the kids to flip through. Some especially cute ones we found at the library:
Boy and Bot
Clink
Robots, Robots Everywhere!
Our unit is officially over, but since there's so much more to learn about robotics than I am capable of teaching my 6-year-old, I signed her up for a 4-week robotics class nearby. More and more robotics classes are popping up and I wouldn't be surprised if there are classes offered for your little robot-fan near you too!
Feel free to check out my Pinterest Board on Robotics for more ideas: https://www.pinterest.com/shelleypimentel/
What other insights or products can you tell us about regarding robots? What do you love?
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