With Valentine's day just around the corner the Book Robot in Love written by by T.L. McBeth is a great book to read followed by a STEM Invitation with Loose Parts. The heartwarming story is about a robot who creates gifts for another robot that he falls in love with.
After reading the story, you can integrate the literacy experience with a STEM invitation to build a Robot with Picasso Tiles and Loose Parts. You will need the PicassoTiles® 100 Piece Set Magnet Building Tiles.PicassoTiles® Piece Set Magnet Tiles as well as Excellerations® Metal Loose Parts Set of 3. Simply invite the child to create a robot with the tiles and metal loose parts.
STEM invitations with Picasso Tiles have a natural progression that touch so many layers of learning. Children have to learn how to move and manipulate various shaped tiles, big and small, as well as have the fine motor control to “click” them into place. Whenever a child builds it helps children enhance their visual-spatial skills and encourages thinking and reasoning. It involves focus and patience that children need to work slowly and carefully to be successful at creating their designs. These skills are what make children become well-rounded, independent and successful adults. By adding loose parts to the STEM invitation you provide another layer of inventiveness for the child to explore. Since loose parts are dynamic in nature, it brings about authenticity of formulating ideas and you can see a child's creativity shine in their creations. Using their imagination through this process boosts cognitive, academic, language and social growth. Through creating, children learn to experiment, take risks, and make new discoveries about how things work while building their own self confidence, once they have created a masterpiece.
