For a whole school wellbeing project I introduced the students to creative artist, Gary Hirsch from Oregon in America and his bots, that he has been making for years to “spread joy, courage,
love, and gratitude throughout the world”. He wants people to “steal this idea” and make a bot to gift to someone in their community.
We watched a video of Gary explaining his bots. The students chose a positive feeling (love, confidence, patience, curiosity, kindness, bravery etc.) for their bot, then made a design in their scrap book using basic shapes for the head and body. I drew a variety of shapes on the whiteboard for students to choose from, along with antennae, arms & legs. (see handout below)
I got several boxes of dominoes from KMart and the students used paint pens, like Posca pens to draw and colour the head and body on a domino. This needs a few minutes to dry.
Students then add a face, a ‘symbol’ on the tummy to represent the bot, for example, a love heart for a Love Bot, a star for a Brave Bot, etc. Outline with a black fine liner and add white highlights.
I had been collecting magnetic calendars & business fridge magnets so cut these into small rectangles to hot glue onto the back of each domino. They were displayed on an old metal sheet, but easily removed to share or gift to someone, and then be kept on the fridge as a positive affirmation.
