The challenge

Step 1

Get your child to draw various shapes onto cardboard or thick paper. The shapes will make up the different parts of their robot’s body.

Examples include:

• triangles for the nose
• quadrilaterals for the eyes and legs
• pentagon for the arms
• hexagons for the feet
• octagons for the body, and
• circles for the cheeks..

Step 2

Help your child cut out their shapes.

Step 3

Now, use the shapes to start to form their robot.

Step 4

Finally, encourage your child to decorate their robot to make it their own, and give it a name. They might even want to write a story about their amazing robot.

The conversation

As your child is drawing shapes, encourage them to notice its particular features:

• the number of sides
• the number of vertices ('corners')
• the different types of 2D shapes and 3D objects. For example quadrilaterals can be rectangles, squares, trapeziums, rhombus and parallelograms
• the similarities and differences between different types of 2D shapes and 3D objects.

After the activity, challenge your child to spot their robot's shapes in their bedroom, on a walk, or on their way to school.