4M Brush Robot: A Great Affordable Engineering Toy

I purchased several 4M robot toys to build with my 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old-son this summer. Today we built the Brush Robot! It took about fifteen minutes to build this with my daughter. The instructions were straight-forward and clear. With simple wiring and the use of a small phillips head screw driver, this is a great toy for a budding engineer! And at around $15, it's very affordable; I'll be buying a few to keep on hand for birthday party and Christmas gifts.

After it's built, you can explore a variety of science and engineering concepts with your child like friction and speed. Here are some questions to explore with your child"

• How does it move on various surfaces? 
• What surface will it move the fastest?
• If we adjust the brush or the tightness of the screws, does it affect the motion of the robot?
• How can you modify the robot so that it will move in a straight line?

Have fun with this great toy!

Brush Robot 

Brush Robot: Contents of the box. 

You'll also need two AAA batteries and a small phillips head screwdriver. 

 Done!

Brush Robot moving around our table! 

My four-year-old loves it too!

Blue & Green "Price is Right" Baby Shower

After celebrating my nephew's first birthday party yesterday, I can't believe it has been over a year since we had the best baby shower for my sister.

We made tissue paper balls and circle garland for decorations.

On the invitation, I used "scratch-off" stickers to have the guests reveal the "lucky parents" and to see if they won a prize by revealing three clovers. (All the invitations were winners!) Guests received their prize when they arrived. The prize was a lucky penny hand-stamped key chain. I made these using a simple metal stamp set, metal punch, and key rings. 

My sister LOVES the game show the Price is Right so we planned some games from the show - Punch A Bunch, PLINKO, and Cliffhanger. My oldest sister made the Punch a Bunch Board with tissue paper and cups. My other sister and I made the PLINKO Board from a peg board and air hockey puck, and I painted the yodeling mountain man scene for the Cliffhanger game. We had a variety of baby items that my sister had to guess the price of for each of these games. It was a blast!

We had a ton of desserts, but the best by far was what we called the "Chocolate Monstrosity" inspired by these ideas. We used yodels, kisses, nutter butters, and lots of chocolatey treats. It was devoured!

My sister is the baker of the family, so for favors we made Mason Jar Zoo Bites, inspired by the Paula Deen S'mores Bars but with animal crackers instead of teddy grahams.

It was a memorable day for my special sister!

Little Blue Truck First Birthday Party

Yesterday was my nephew's first birthday party. I was so happy to contribute to the celebration by making a few things to add to the Little Blue Trucktheme.

I made a large Little Blue Truck photo booth prop. My sister ordered farm animal balloons from ebay, and we tried to set it up to look like the cover of the book.

My sister ordered a truck cookie cutter from Cheap Cookie Cutters, and I made sugar cookies. I used a great sugar cookie recipe from the awesome Two Gays Giving and the royal icing recipe from Wilton. Sweetapolita gave me great tips for making a perfect sugar cookies; I had no idea how important it is to keep the sugar cookie dough cold so that it doesn't spread while baking. I used an excellent post from the Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle for lots of tips and tricks for icing the cookies.

I used one of the truck cookies on my tiered cake and hand cut the sugar cookie dough in the shapes of a toad, toad crossing sign, and birthday sign. I made the bottom tier of the cake three layers thick and carved it to look like the hills in the book. My sister bought Farm Animal Candles to come out from the bed of the pick up truck. Lastly, I used Wilton Edible Markers to write "Happy Birthday Vincent" on the iced sugar cookie and "Toad Crossing" on the sign. It was a hit.

What a wonderful party for a sweet little one-year-old!