Tinkering with Brads

A brad is a little brass nail that comes in many different sizes and is used as a ‘connector’. Young Children are fascinated by creating things that can move. Even three-year old are able to use a mallet to hammer the brad into a piece of card board. They are able to insert the brad into the carboard and to then connect the pieces together.

First, we hammered the brad into the recycled cardboard. I drew little black dots on the cardboard, so they knew where to position the brad.

We are making robots that move. Decorating the robot body is super fun because they can choose all kinds of items to use as pretend ‘control’ buttons. We collected an assortment of recycled craft materials to use for switches. Tin foil made solar panels. Reflective tape, springs, flash lights, old batteries, jewels, copper scrubbing brushes are other examples of fun recycled materials to create a robot. Of course, your child will want to give their robot a name too.

Four and five-year-old children can insert a piece of string and turn the robot into a puppet.

Add bottle caps for pretend control buttons and some tin foil for the robot’s solar panels.

An old DVD and rubber wrapped wire were necessary to make this imaginary robot work!

¾ or 1 inch is a great size for small fingers.