Kids love every opportunity to build, design and create whenever possible. I always look for ways to incorporate hands-on engaging activities in thematic centers. February is the perfect month to implement a geometric heart STEM toys challenge that would be the perfect compliment for your morning work tubs, math workshop centers, and science stations.

Whether you happen to be teaching geometry content or not, it’s so important to be exposed to visual and spatial hands-on experiences. The Learning Resources Geometric Shapes Building Set is the perfect way to manipulate, create and build 3-dimensional shapes.

In order to get started, you’ll need to decide how to best differentiate for your target age group. Giving students a completed visual is a great way to start. If you’d like to give them some clues but not necessarily a completed visual, you can always provide picture clues of how to get started. On another note, you can always just begin with the most challenging scenario. This is just listing how many of each puzzle piece, and then slowly add in some modifications to support your students so they don’t get to the point of frustration.

In order to begin, you will need to gather each of these Learning Resources Geometric Shapes Building Set pieces:

• 7 long purple side edges
• 10 short green side edges
• 16 rounded blue side edges
• 10 orange round vertices
• 3 red round vertices

If you’re wondering where to start building a 3d dimensional heart with this set, you’ll want to build one of the two rounded upper portions. This is one complete rounded upper portion and below I’ll take you through step by step.

Step 1:

Take 2 sets of 5 short green edges and connect each set to one orange vertex (you’ll end up with two as seen).

Step 2:

Take two sets of 4 rounded blue edges and assemble them into 2 circles using one with 4 oranges vertices and the other with 3. They will soon become attached so one orange vertex will be used in both circles.

Step 3:

Place step 1 into the center of step 2 and assemble as seen.

Step 4:

Gather 2 sets of 4 blue rounded edges and attach them with a red vertex as seen. Then place them on top of steps 1-3 and connect them at each orange vertex.

Next, you’ll be connecting the two circles via the base of the heart.

Step 5:

Attach 3 long purple edges to one red vertex and another one with two long purple edges. These will be attached to the upper rounded portions but don’t actually attach to the vertex. They just lay flush to it. Also, assemble two long purple edges to one orange vertex.

Step 6:

Use the 3 long purple edges with the red vertex to attach the two-round semi-circles. Each outer purple edge will connect to the outer orange vertices of the circles and the center will connect to the center of the one circle with 4 vertices. The two long purple edges and two loose purple edges will attach to the outer orange vertices and hang down to create an apex as the point of the heart.

Kids and students are sure to love this STEM challenge both in and out of the classroom!

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Host a STEM-tastic Playdate to Celebrate November 8!

Invite the whole crew over for National STEM Day this November 8th with a science-, technology-, engineering-, and math-themed playdate!National STEM Day began in 2015, as our nation began to recognize that STEM-centered careers were growing 70 percent faster than other occupations. Research has shown the introduction of STEM concepts to children can improve their social and emotional development, as well as their rational thinking skills.

STEM really goes beyond conveying knowledge from teacher to student. Kids learn problem-solving, critical thinking skills, and collaboration with their peers. Connections are made between school, community, and home that seem to stick. The real-life implications of STEM pull together ideas that teach children that what they learn, as well as the ideas they share, benefit our world as a whole.

Let’s bring together all these concepts into a big, fun playdate. With the help of Learning Resources’ STEM-centered products, we engineered an engaging afternoon with our friends, completely screen-free.(And another beauty of STEM? It knows no age. If little brothers and sisters want to join in on the fun, the more the merrier!)We sent out invites, had our friends over, and made an afternoon of activities!

STEM Station #1: Botley

Spread out on the living room floor for our first STEM Station was Botley. This little coding robot lives up to its reputation for out-of-the-box fun. From the first moment Botley lit up and began chatting with our friends, it was love at first code.

With just a quick skim of the directions, the friends were coding in minutes. Before we knew it, Botley was pushing around blocks and racing toward the finish line.

A solid 45 minutes was spent at the Botley station, as the friends took turns sending Botley backwards and in circles. (It was hard to tear the kids away to move to the next station, but our playdate clock was ticking.)

STEM Station #2: Beaker Creatures

Our friends moved from the floor to the kitchen table to discover the fizzy, funny wonder of the Beaker Creatures Reactor Pods. Each mysterious pod is filled with an alien traveler. Who were they going to discover?Each individually wrapped pod comes with a classification card that will help our friends figure out who is who.Time to drop in our first discovery.

As they waited and watch the water foam, the friends tried to figure out which alien could be lurking in the inky waters.

All set! Who did we get?

Filling out the identification card made the friends feel like they were classifying new species from out of this world.

And soon one bowl was not enough. Let’s dissolve more! Who can we add to our collection?

STEM Station #3: Coding Critters

We set up an additional folding table in the family room to accommodate all our scientists, technicians, engineers, and mathematics for more STEM-tastic discoveries. Station #3 included the Rumble and Bumble, the adorable Coding Critters. Similar to Botley, Rumble and Bumble are screen-free, coding fun. The Coding Critters come with a storybook. First things first, the older friends read to the younger ones about with whom they were about to play.

Rumble and Bumble’s playset was fun to set up, but even more fun to knockdown. Once the friends figured out how to get Rumble moving, the crashing began!

The Coding Critters have a “code mode” and a “play mode”. In the play mode, our friends began to interact with Rumble like it was a real live pet! There were even challenges in the storybook…one was how to teach Rumble to have a snack with Bumble.

Like all awesome playdates, our time had to end. But the afternoon of STEM-centered fun will not soon be forgotten!Happy National STEM Day!

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Summer STEM

School is out for the summer - the days are long, daily schedules are relaxed, and parents everywhere are struggling to find activities to keep their kids engaged and entertained! We’ve lived all over the country, so summers have ranged from gorgeously warm to brutally hot and humid. Depending on your climate, this time of year means you are either trying to soak up the sun or escape the crazy heat. Well, today I am sharing one of our favorite STEM activities that can be enjoyed both indoors and out.

I frequently try to provide my daughters with activities that are open-ended. This means that there isn’t really a “beginning” and “end” to the play. There are no desired results and they have the freedom to be as creative as they would like. My girls have always enjoyed various forms of pretend play - usually acting out an occupation or activity that they observe from us, a book, or a show.

Gears Garden Building

I decided to create a fun Summer Garden set up in our living room on an overcast morning using our Gears, Gears, Gears! sets. My youngest can get a little frustrated with the base tiles, so the three of us arranged them together. After that, the girls were free to build the garden of their dreams!

I love these gears because the possibilities are endless. They have been one of the best ways to encourage free play involving STEM. Mainly because they make a great independent quiet time activity. It’s awesome to watch my daughters’ minds work as they try to figure out how to make the entire board of gears and their “flowers” rotate and spin.

Once they felt that their garden was complete, the sun had come out and I moved their garden to a table on our deck. I added in buckets of water, a watering can, small animals and fairies. Adding in the pretend play elements was a huge success and they especially loved getting to water their garden. The gears are great because we can easily use them both indoors and outdoors - to include water play! This activity ended up being a huge success and occupied them for over two hours. We will definitely be adding it into our summer “boredom busters” rotation for the rest of this year.

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