Robotics and Simple Machines Unit Study—Schedule and Lesson Plan

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Yay! We are back at it, following a blissful several weeks with our new baby Theodore. I've known for a long time that the children would love a Robotics Unit, but I was a little nervous to get started because I don't know anything about robotics! Luckily we already had last year's Electricity Unit to build on, and then I had the brilliant idea of starting Robotics by learning about Simple Machines! I'd planned to have a separate unit on Simple Machines, but since robots are complex machines, often made up of several types of simple machines, it seemed to be a good fit here.

We absolutely loved learning about robots, and now the children all pretend to BE robots constantly. I like it because robots are good cleaners and washers and workers! And if they protest, I can just remind them that robots ALWAYS do the job they are asked to do. Unless they're badly programmed, of course. :)

One thing I learned from one of our books is that simple machines fall into two main classifications: inclined planes and levers. So screws and wedges are types or variations of inclined planes, and wheels-and-axles and pulleys are types of levers. For some reason that concept had eluded me before, but dividing them up that way helped them make sense to me in a new way.

Here's my Robotics and Simple Machines Pinterest page.