My preschoolers and I recently delved into a robot theme! In addition to lots of books and science explorations, we made this simple robot craft. Our robot vests let the children create their own dress up clothes using recycled materials!
Robot vests are an easy and fun robot craft to make!
Materials
Brown paper grocery bags
Bottle tops
Duct tape
Markers
Glue
Set Up
I picked up the paper bags from my local grocery store. Nothing like starting a conversation with “I teach preschool, and . . .” when asking for donations! Everything else we used was already on-hand in the classroom or in our workroom. I find it fun to go “shopping” in our workroom every once in a while, just to see what items my students might like to use!
To prep the vests, I cut down the middle of the brown paper bags. From there, I cut a hole for the head and panels for the kids’ arms. Then I simply set out the materials and invited the children to make their own robot outfits.
The Creative Process
I had the children come to the art table individually or in groups of two. It worked well to have a small number working on this robot craft at any one time. Since the materials took up a bit of space, the smaller groupings gave the kiddos enough elbow room to work in.
The children used bottle tops, old film canister lids, and medicine bottle tops to make all kinds of switches, dials, and buttons for their robots! One of the children, as she was adding an “off button”, declared that her robot vest needed lights. When I asked how she wanted to make the lights, she ran over to our sensory table and grabbed a handful of colorful corn kernels. Many of the other students loved this idea, and I did too. I was so happy that she took the initiative to improve upon our robot craft! 🙂
Some of the kiddos spent a ton of time decorating their robot vests. They added tons of detail and poured over the placement of each and every piece. Other children quickly colored their vests, and a few others just weren’t interested. If they didn’t want to make a vest, that wasn’t a problem for me. I encouraged the kids to create how they wanted and didn’t force anyone to participate if they chose not to. While there are certain activities that every child needs to participate in, I still give the children tons of chances to say “no, thank you” throughout the day.
It was fun chatting with the boys and girls as they created their robot vests! I asked a variety of questions like – “what kind of robot are you going to be?”, “how would you build a real robot?”, and “what’s that button for?” Needless to say, I received an even wider variety of answers! We had zombie robots with buttons to spray weed killer on plants, dancing robots with musical buttons, and princess robots with sparkly buttons that shot glitter . . . just to name a few!
Ideas for Next Time
I think it would be fun to add a planning stage to this activity next time. This would add another dimension to the robot craft, turning it into more of an art project.
Do you have a robot craft you’d like to share? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
For more robotic fun, pop by my Mr. Roboto Pinterest board!
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