STEM

Are you looking for a fun, screen-free activity for your little ones this holiday season? I highly recommend building Gumdrop Christmas Trees! The activity is inexpensive, has minimal setup, and is adored by people of all ages. Who doesn’t like incorporating candy into a project?!

Building structures from toothpicks and gumdrops is an excellent STEM activity incorporating science, learning, and math into play. All you need is a bunch of toothpicks and some spiced gumdrops. I had a hard time finding gumdrops locally (I was shocked since it is Christmas time!), so if you run into that issue, mini marshmallows will also work just as well.

I laid the supplies on the table and told my girls that we would try and build Christmas trees. They are only three and five years old, so they needed some advice on getting started. I explained that they first needed to build a base, and then after that, they would just add to it as they saw fit.

We talked and walked through the base building together. After that, they caught on to the process and began constructing their trees!

As the building continued, the girls would point out if the structure was wobbling, and I would show them how they could add support with more toothpicks.

Finally, all that was left was adding a yellow gumdrop star at the top.

This was a fun project and a wonderful way to incorporate a screen-free STEM activity into the holidays. If your children are a bit older, you can even set up a competition to see who can build the tallest or most elaborate tree. For younger kids, just providing the toothpicks and gumdrops will create an awesome fine motor STEM activity. Regardless of age, this is a fun project to do together as a family. It’s something that both kids and adults are sure to enjoy!

I’m sure by now you have heard about how beneficial “STEM activities” are for children, but many of you may be wondering what that means or entails. STEM activities are anything that promotes curiosity and growth in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math.

Although those topics may sound pretty advanced for a preschooler or young child, there are many easy ways to incorporate a love for these concepts in the early years! Curiosity, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking are at the heart of STEM! These are traits that the youngest child can be encouraged to explore.

One fun topic that we’ve been interested in lately is coding! I would have never imagined that my three and 5-year-old would be excited about something that I thought was so complex, but boy was I wrong. Their fascination began when we started playing with various imaginative play toys to teach them coding, our favorite being Botley the Coding Robot. They were instantly intrigued by the reactions that resulted from the commands they typed in!

I loved watching their little minds click as they realized that each command change would create a different outcome. To foster their new love for this concept, I began providing additional screen-free activities to help them become better at following patterns and various steps. Here is a fun, holiday-themed coding activity you can easily create for your little one.

Coding Candy Canes!

Pipe cleaners, pony beads, paper, and markers. Cut each pipe cleaner into three pieces and bend them into a candy cane shape. Next, select the colors or beads that you want to use. I recommend 2-3 colors for younger children, but you could use as many as you wish for an older child. Because the activity was for both of my daughters, I chose only red and green.

Lastly, take your paper and draw various candy canes on it, adding colored “bead dots” with your markers in the patterns or order you want your child to mirror.

Provide your child with pipe cleaner candy canes, beads, and paper. Ask them first to sort the beads into different color piles. Then, instruct them to create candy canes that match the ones on the paper. My girls loved this activity, and we hung the finished candy canes around our playroom as festive décor.

So there you have it: an inexpensive, low-prep, and screen-free way to introduce coding to your child! I hope that you found this informative and that it sheds some light on just how fun and easy STEM activities can be.

This time of year bursts with discovery and wonder, so why not make the most of it? Take a break from the hustle and bustle to enjoy this simple chemistry experiment that features everyone’s favorite scientific ingredients: vinegar and baking soda.

Kids never tire of seeing this classic base and solid reaction. No matter the shape it takes, watching those bubbles grow will always make your little chemist erupt with excitement. Here we make little “evergreens” to demonstrate this scientific standard of chemical reactions.

• Baking soda
• Food coloring
• A splash of water
• Paper plates
• Vinegar
• Glitter
• Eyedropper or pipette
• Bowl, spoon, and tray

First, pour 2 to 2 ½ cups of baking soda into the bowl. Feel free to scale these portions for the number of trees you want to make.

Next, add green food coloring and a splash of water.

Stir the mixture well. Add glitter for added sparkle. The mixture should be crumbly but should be able to pack tightly (similar to kinetic sand). The last thing you want it to be is soupy or clumpy.

Grab a white paper plate, and cut it in half.

Twist the plate into a cone shape. Tape the sides to keep the form.

Then pack the baking soda mixture into the cones. Be sure to pack it tightly—level off the top. 

Make another round of snow-capped trees without food coloring. Add confetti for a special reveal.

Place all the cones on a cookie sheet and keep them in the freezer for at least six hours.

When your chemists are ready, pull your trees from the freezer. Grab a pie plate or dish with sides high enough to contain the liquid but low enough for your kids to see the reaction up close.

Pour the vinegar into a cup and add a little green food coloring. Your trees will be a bit more brilliant green if you add food coloring to the vinegar.

Carefully unwrap your trees from the paper plate cone over the pie plate, so any crumbles are caught.

Create your “forest” on the pie plate. Then using the eyedropper or pipette, drip the vinegar over the trees. The fizzing begin immediately!

The vinegar reveals the hidden snowflakes and glitter.

Once the forest is melted down, grab a spoon and stir it up. It was decided that the mess look liked soup the Grinch would like.

Repeat with other trees – the excitement level remains the same for each melting, fizzy tree! Happy holidays!

The shelves are bursting with candy corn confections this time of year. The mellocreme pumpkin is a treat made of honey and sugar, simply ripe with scientific possibilities. Grab your little goblins for this ghoulish experiment: dissolve candy pumpkins in different liquids. Stand back to watch the magic! This is an experiment of testing hypotheses. What does your little scientist think will happen in each liquid? Will the pumpkins float? Sink? Dissolve? Stay intact? What happens if you add a little heat? Let’s find out!

• Candy corn pumpkins
  
• Clear glasses
  
• Water, warm and cold
  
• Vinegar
  
• Vegetable oil
  
• Milk
  
• Microwave
  
• Timer

1. Label your clear glasses for each liquid. Fill your glasses about half full.
2. Drop in each pumpkin. Observe for any immediate reaction. Grab your timer and begin to measure your observations in five-minute increments.

3. 5 Minutes: There was lots of bubbling in the warm water and little difference to the other liquids.

4. 10 Minutes: The cold water and vinegar liquids began to turn orange as the sugar “skin” of the pumpkin began to shed, but not much change for the pumpkin in milk.

5. 15 minutes: The cold water, warm water, and vinegar pumpkins all began to shed their “skin,” providing a spooky element to the experiment!

6. 30 Minutes: At last! The theory that the pumpkins might float comes true as the pumpkin’s sugar skin lifts it to the top of the glass. This might provide giggles, as your experiment now looks a little haunted. Who invited the ghost?

8. To add a little interest, put the oil pumpkin in the microwave for 20 seconds. You’ll find it will bubble and then wholly flatten out.

9. Have an adult fish the flattened pumpkin out. You will find it is very pliable and is almost plastic-like in consistency. Your little scientists might be taken aback that this is, in fact, something we can eat!

The milk broke down the sugary pumpkin over time by dissolving it. The warm water made the reaction slightly faster, but the two water temperatures and the vinegar broke down the candy first, creating sugar “ghosts” from the outer coating. And while the oil had little effect on the pumpkin when resting in the liquid, adding the heat made the natural reaction occur. It was decided that time was the fundamental factor in this experiment: the more time the pumpkins sat in the liquids, the more chances to observe!

Welcome to Monday Funday with Miss Alissa from @heartmindedmama ✨

Miss Alissa is an early childhood educator and mom of two! Over the next few weeks, Miss Alissa will be sharing skill-building activities for you to do at home or in your classroom.

We are starting it off with three out-of-this-world activities for Space Week, which starts October 4th.

This collection of space activities for preschoolers will keep them actively engaged while building essential life skills. Thoughtfully designed with little ones, these STEM toys for kids help learners as young as 3 build early science and fine motor skills!

Solar System Puzzle Globe - Space is the place for preschool learning fun! Kids build hands-on science skills as they solve the out-of-this-world 3-D puzzle found on the Solar System Puzzle Globe, a hands-on STEM toy for kids from Learning Resources. Inspired by our award-winning Puzzle Globe, this fun rotating puzzle adds some space décor to the puzzle play action—kids position eight easy-grip planet puzzle pieces that also introduce the names and appearances of our solar system neighbors. In addition to building early fine motor and critical thinking skills, this STEM toy for kids is also ready for imaginative adventures thanks to its fun, friendly astronaut and spaceship pieces—as kids explore the cosmos with their new friends, there’s no telling what they’ll discover!

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I love it when the leaves start to change color, and it creates so many fun Fall-themed learning opportunities for my three- and seven-year-old. For this activity, we enjoyed a leaf hunt outside, looking for all sorts of shapes and colors of leaves. I then added a few simple tools and ingredients to turn our new leaf collection into an exciting sensory water table. 

• Jumbo Tweezers
• Fine Motor Tool Set
• Sensory table or containers 
• Scissors 
• Bowls 
• Magnifying glass 
• Water (we also added a few drops of food coloring)
• Leaves from a nature walk 

Some of my all-time favorite activities start with a nature walk; there’s just something so special about the learning and creativity that comes from the great outdoors! Before we left the playground, we worked together to gather up a fun selection of leaves that had fallen from the trees. As we did so, we spoke about the different colors and shapes we could see. I put my seven-year-old in charge of counting how many leaves we had in our collection.

Once we got home, the kids refueled with a snack while I quickly set up the water table. I used our IKEA FLISAT Children’s Table with two small TROFAST bins and one large one. I added water and five drops of green food coloring to the large bin placed the leaves in one of the small bins, and then the fine motor and cutting tools in the other small bin. It was terrific how inviting this setup looked, considering its simplicity!

I always try to keep sensory bin setups as open-ended as possible to build my children’s confidence to explore independently. Straight away, my seven-year-old started experimenting to see whether the leaves would float or sink in the water. Together they spent ages using scissors to cut the leaves into different shapes. We had a star, a man, a dinosaur, and even a boat floating on the water. The fine motor skills at work were awesome. This is where having an older sibling helps because it encourages creativity and imagination for the little one!

Both my kids enjoyed exploring the different fine motor tools. Big bro liked using the Squeezy Tweezers™ and Handy Scooper™ to rescue the leaves from the water and then drop them back in. Meanwhile, baby sis was all about making the leaf confetti and sprinkling it into her bowls of green leaf soup!

Adding a magnifying glass to any sensory setup can stimulate more in-depth conversations and observations. The kids were fascinated by the veins running through the leaves and experimented with ripping the leaves to explore them further.

This was such a fun sensory and fine motor setup, and best of all, it appealed to both ages. It pays off to ensure a range of open-ended tools and containers with a sensory table because you never quite know how kids will choose to play with it.

Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.