One of Alex’s favourite book at the moment is “Robot Rumpus” by Sean Taylor. Its a funny story about mayhem caused by a group of robot. If there’s anything Alex love more than anything, it is mayhem.

In this activity we’re building robot figurines using Styrofoam. Initially it took a while until I could get Alex’s interest. After a few days, he helped himself to the basket of materials and started to build his own robots.

Recommended for children age 18 months and over.

I’m in favour of providing open ended play during early childhood years. It is important to let children be creative without being burdened by rules and instructions. Sometimes, as parents, we are too caught up in telling them how things should be done. How they view the world might be different than us. Therefore, providing them the opportunity to be expressive shows that we respect them for who they are.

This activity is aimed to strengthen those fine muscles through poking the toothpicks/pipe cleaers and manipulating the Styrofoam. As he complete each robot, he develops positive self-concept for building something by himself. It may look simple, but for him each robot is something special.

Once completed, he let his imagination runs. “I’m making Clean-Bot, Mummy! It has lots of hands to clean, sweep and spray”, said Alex practicing his new vocabularies.

Materials:

Styrofoam

Pipe cleaners

Coloured toothpicks

Google Eyes

PVA glue

Instructions:

Cut Styrofoam into small pieces with different shapes and sizes. Provide those materials on the table and let the child use their imagination and be creative.