Gifted Item
I am loving the new stage of Daniel’s development where he can spot something and create his own projects; it’s great to see the things that capture his imagination and let him just get on with things.
A few weeks ago the new ‘What on Earth?’ books arrived with me; this one is all about Robots. Daniel promptly whisked the book away and a short while later enquired about whether we had a large box… He soon discovered one (his younger brothers birthday gift) and earmarked that for later in the week.
He also started asking me about 3v motors and styrofoam. After a few days, he started writing out a list of things to send to his Grandad that they would need to build a robot with (complete with tick marks for the bits we had already gathered up). I sourced a motor from eBay and once things have settled a little here, Daniel and my Dad will be making a robot together.
In the interim, Daniel has happily created his own robot costume (from the cardboard box) and has delighted in many robot facts and figures for me.
This series of book is really special and I need to put the trees and bees version somewhere to hand for him to look through as I know that they will spark some interest for him. I am also on the look out for the other two in the series (water and wind) as I suspect they could form the basis of some work for the autumn term for the children.
The style of this books is very clever, interspersing facts and information in a fun engaging way but also having plenty of hands-on activities, and activities that are easily achievable with minimal help from me. I suspect this book supports the Design aspect of school curriculums and when Daniel was making his robot costume he certainly gave lots of thought to his design and he has already had some thoughts for his motorised robot too.
I always think the mark of a quality children’s book series is whether it excites children to get on and do stuff – does it entice them to get into a topic and does it really ignite and excite them? For me, this is a huge YES for this series and just love how much is has engaged Daniel.
Pauline Healey says
Brilliant, he’s a clever boy and that’s a lovely picture of him x