a stemful mind - Playful And Mindful STEM At Home And In Nature
Playful And Mindful STEM At Home And In Nature
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Category Archives: STEM activities

Simple DIY Scale For STEM And Nature Play

A simple STEM play setup with natural materials that you can leave out and come back to throughout the day. This activity is a lovely way to create something with your kids. Something they can later on use to explore and understand the world a bit better. Keep reading to find out how you can make your own DIY scale for STEM and use it to explore scientific and mathematical concepts through play.

Materials

These are the materials we used to create or simple DIY scale for STEM and nature play:

  • Hanger
  • Baskets
  • String
  • A place to hang it (we just attached a stick to our railing and hung it on there)
  • Natural materials
  • Optional: Clothespins with numbers on them

We tied the string to the baskets and found a place to put our hanger. We love involving our kids in this part of the process too. By modelling this DIY attitude, we are cultivating a their own “can do” attitude. They are problem solving, they are creating things they can play with. It doesn’t just magically appear, or is bought from a store. We use the resources we have at home and make something with it, developing resourcefulness. Somethink key in STEM and life in general.

STEM skills

Once the set up is complete, you can explore the scale togethere. Here are some examples of what you can talk about while you play:

  • Scientific concepts: weight, materials
  • Categorizing: find out what objects are heavier/lighter, use different combinations and compare
  • Observation: what happens when objects are heavier?
  • Math: how many shells do we need to balance a stone? What is heavier 4 shells or 2 pinecones?
  • Conversations: Talk and wonder about what you see and the materials you are using
DIY Scale STEM activity
STEM and Nature play
STEM natural materials DIY Scale
Natural materials STEM play
DIY Scale For STEM and nature play
DIY Scale for STEM and Nature play

Play around with it together, maybe you just end up piling everything into the baskets like we did, trying to fill all the spaces.

Check Out These Other STEM Activities With Natural Materials:

  • Simple Science Project For Kids: Float or Sink
  • Nature Puzzles: A Wonderful Way To Explore Shapes
  • STEM Project: Engineer a House out of Natural Materials
  • Gardening With Kids: Beautiful Math And Art Activity
  • STEM Nature Box: Sort, Categorize, And Learn
DIY Scale STEM activity
DIY Scale STEM activity
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Playful And Colorful Water Play For Kids

Color mixing is such a great way for kids and toddlers to experiment! They choose colors, observe what happens, and try out different combinations to see what comes out. It nurtures their curious mind and develops their thinking skills. And they are able to do it by themselves which is always so much fun! The set up requires some help from an adult but you can also involve your kids in the design process and foster some DIY engineering abilities. We kept trying out the angle of the bottles together to see if we had to position them in a “more vertical or more horizontal” way. Keep reading to find out how we set up this water play for kids:

Materials

  • 3 plastic bottles with their tops
  • A big container to collect the water
  • 3 containers to mix primary colors
  • Something to scoop and pour water (we used measuring cups with handles)
  • Food coloring (red, blue, yellow)
water play for kids
water play for kids

Water Play For Kids Set Up:

  • Cut off the bottom of two of the bottles and cut the other one in half
  • Fix them to a tree, wall, corkboard… we used nails to fix ours to a big pine tree
  • Mix water and food coloring
  • Experiment with colors

That’s it! A simple set up, loads of color mixing fun.

For Similar Water Play For Kids:

  • Discover Color Mixing With This Simple Hands-on Activity
  • 5 Brilliant Ways To Experiment With Oobleck
  • Simple Science Project For Kids: Float or Sink
  • Beautiful Hands-on Activities For Preschoolers: STEM Nature Eggs
  • Fun Color Experiment For Toddlers Who Love A Good Mess

Check Out Parenting Tips And Inspiration For STEM At Home:

  • What is STEM and why is STEM Learning important?
  • 5 Tips to Transform STEM Activities at Home
  • 5 Reasons for Supporting STEM Learning at Home
  • Discover The Best Strategies For Learning That Sticks
  • Play-Based Learning: How Children Learn Through Play
  • Have You Wondered With Your Kid Today?
  • The Dos And Don’ts Of Free Play. A STEM Perspective
  • Connect As A Family Through Play And Discovery
  • How To Develop Early Math Skills Outdoors

water play for kids
water play for kids
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Ultimate Holiday STEM: Christmas Indoor Game For The Whole Family

With Christmas around the corner we decided to try a fun themed STEM activity. This Christmas indoor game turned out to be so much fun! This game is a great way to fire up the brain and get those little minds working and learning. Recommended ages: preschool ages from 3 to 5. Once they get older you can go for real circuits, this one is just pretend.

christmas indoor game STEM activity for kids

Christmas Indoor Game

Materials

  • 2 x Egg cartons 
  • Paint for coloring the egg cartons
  • Pipe cleaners: we used Christmas style pipe cleaners that were red, green, yellow and blue colors, 5 of each color
  • Bells for extra decoration (optional)
  • 2 x LED battery-operated lights with a switch
  • Fun squeaky toy that can act as a buzzer
  • Paper/markers/scissors to make the cards

Preparation 

To prepare the activity you will need to:

  1. Turn the egg cartons around and paint each row
  2. Once the paint has dried, poke a hole in each colored circle
  3. Prepare playing cards: We cut out card-sized pieces of paper and drew a color code on them: a line for the pipe cleaner color and two circles for the colors that it connects on the egg carton

Christmas Indoor Game Set up

Once you have all your materials it’s time to set up the game. Place the egg cartons on the LED lights and the buzzer between them. Cards can be placed on the table too. 

How To Play The Christmas Indoor Game

We pretended we were connecting wires to see if we could get the lights to work. There are two playing modes:

Mode 1: Follow the code and connect the wires

christmas indoor game STEM activity for kids

2 players: Each player draws 1 – 3 cards depending on age and tries to connect the wires correctly. Once done, each player takes a turn to hit the buzzer and the other player switches the light on if the cables (pipe cleaners) are correct. If the lights don’t go on, then it’s time to take a look at what went wrong and try again.

3 players: Same as before but one player is in charge of the lights and the other two have to connect the wires correctly. The one in charge has to check that the wires are correct before turning on any lights.

Mode 2: Design and replicate

christmas indoor game STEM activity for kids

Each player takes a turn to become a creator and designs their own circuit. The other player then has to replicate it. Once it has been replicated, the player hits the buzzer and the creator (or a third player) turns both lights on if it is correct. 

STEM learning

This activity is a great exercise for the brain! 

🚥 First, it has children using a new language, a code, to follow instructions. This helps develop cognitive abilities. 

🧩 Second, children have to compare and make sure that everything is correct or find out what went wrong, which is great for problem-solving, critical thinking, and logical reasoning. 

⚡Third, it is pretend circuit play so you can start introducing very basic vocabulary like wires and electricity. Look around the room and talk about what needs electricity to work 

❤️ Fourth, it is quality time spent together. Creating positive emotions surrounding STEM experiences is key for kids motivation for STEM.

christmas indoor game STEM activity for kids

If both parents are playing this with their kids, which we definitely recommend you do, let them be in charge of the lights and play against each other. This really gets their brains working. Once they figure out the code and have followed it a few times, being in charge of overseeing the lights is a great way to boost brain activity. They don’t just follow instructions but they have to check that everything is correct. A crucial aspect of any STEM profession. 

Hope you enjoyed this fun Christmas set up. We wish you a lovely holiday!

More Fun Family Games:

  • Fantastic Outdoor Game With Great Learning Potential
  • Multisensory Learning: The Sound and Feel of Materials

Check Out Parenting Tips And Inspiration For STEM At Home:

  • What is STEM and why is STEM Learning important?
  • 5 Tips to Transform STEM Activities at Home
  • 5 Reasons for Supporting STEM Learning at Home
  • Discover The Best Strategies For Learning That Sticks
  • Play-Based Learning: How Children Learn Through Play
  • Have You Wondered With Your Kid Today?
  • The Dos And Don’ts Of Free Play. A STEM Perspective
  • Connect As A Family Through Play And Discovery
  • How To Develop Early Math Skills Outdoors

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Spoon Ding Challenge: Engaging Ramp Activity For Early STEM

Ramps, or inclined planes, are a great way to explore physics concepts. Trial and error, gravity, hand-eye coordination, motor skills, critical thinking, problem solving, are some of the skills that are developed when playing with ramps. This challenge is based on an activity I did for physics class when I was in high school. It involved a lot more precise measuring and math but we have simplified it so that even preschoolers can enjoy it! The activity is pretty simple, it involves building a ramp out of recycled materials and then experimenting with it. Check out the process below.

STEM early years STEM for kids Building together Engineering for kids

1. Materials

  • Cardboard boxes 
  • Paper towel or toilet rolls
  • Masking tape
  • Scissors or other cutting tools
  • Marbles or balls of different sizes
  • Containers
  • Spoon

2. Build Your Own Ramp

This part is open-ended. Gather your recycled materials and build a ramp. If you need an example check out ours in the images.

We just taped some kitchen rolls together and then created a base by cutting a hole out of some cardboard to put the rolls through. We also added some stability to the bottom by adding another piece of cardboard. It really doesn’t have to look amazing, the important thing is that it is steady and doesn’t fall when you roll marbles down it. 

3. Spoon Ding Challenge

Set-up

Now for the fun part!! Place the ramp up high so that objects will roll off a table or chair. It also should be at the edge so that when the objects leave the ramp they go into free fall. We secured it with more tape so that it wouldn’t move. This is important for the challenge. 

Position is important. Once an object is in free fall, it is only pulled by gravity. This means that its trajectory is determined by the distance to the ground (which we are keeping constant) and the speed at which it leaves the ramp. The speed might vary slightly because our ramp might not be perfectly smooth or because our kids throw the ball in instead of just dropping it. But most of the time the trajectory will be similar enough and the marble will mostly hit the same spot on the floor, which is quite cool!

Give your children time to explore and play, place containers on the floor and try to catch the marbles. Make small changes to the setting and see what happens. Our kids had lots of fun with this.

Challenge

After playing with the ramp you can add a challenge. It’s time to see if you can hear a “ding”. Have your kid watch the spot where the marbles hit the ground and have them place the spoon there. Time to see if they got the spot right! Let some marbles roll and keep your eyes closed to see if you can hear the “ding”. Keep going, it will happen quite often and it is very satisfactory to hear how you hit the target!! 

Change the position of the ramp and repeat. See how many times in a row you can hear that “ding”!

early years STEM build a ramp fun with ramps

STEM Concepts

This activity is great for all ages. For toddlers, you are encouraging fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, object permanence and basic vocabulary. For the preschool ages you can further enrich vocabulary and work on critical thinking, problem solving, trial and error, and basic physics concepts, such as gravity. Going one step further, you can use this simple setup for elementary-aged kids and get into a bit more math by measuring distance and height, letting them be more involved in the process of building the ramp, working on engineering design skills and so much more!

To experiment with the concept of free fall and the different variables (speed and distance), here are some suggestions:

  • Mark the spot
  • Move the ramp back or forward. Is it easier to predict the spot if the ball rolls off the table instead of directly from the ramp? What changed, speed or distance?
  • Try with different sized/weight balls. Do you have to move your mark forward/backwards? What changed?
  • Put some books under your ramp, or change the slope (make it steeper or more flat). Where does your mark go now? What changed?
  • Can you predict where it will land? Measure how far your mark is and recreate somewhere else 

Build Or Create More Fun Things Together:

  • Hands-on Engineering For Kids: How To Make A Wind Farm
  • Milk The Cow STEM Challenge: Can You Mimic Nature?
  • STEM Challenge: The Tower of Random Things
  • STEM Activity: Build a Pyramid and Learn about Shapes
  • Fantastic Outdoor Game With Great Learning Potential

Check Out Parenting Tips And Inspiration For STEM At Home:

  • What is STEM and why is STEM Learning important?
  • 5 Tips to Transform STEM Activities at Home
  • 5 Reasons for Supporting STEM Learning at Home
  • Discover The Best Strategies For Learning That Sticks
  • Play-Based Learning: How Children Learn Through Play
  • Have You Wondered With Your Kid Today?
  • The Dos And Don’ts Of Free Play. A STEM Perspective
  • Connect As A Family Through Play And Discovery
  • How To Develop Early Math Skills Outdoors

Early years STEM ramp activity fun learning
early years STEM ramp activity fun learning for kids
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Gardening With Kids: Beautiful Math And Art Activity

Kids enjoy getting their hands dirty and helping out in the garden is a great way to put that love of dirt to good use. And gardening with kids is actually a great way to help their development. Planting seeds and helping them grow gives kids a sense of purpose and responsibility. The tasks of tending to a garden, such as adding soil and seeds to a pot, or watering plants helps with motor skills, body management and object control. In addition, the sensory experience of feeling the soil, the water, seeds or any natural material is very engaging for little ones.

There is also so much to talk about! And conversation is a great way to develop young minds. So to bring this all together, we have prepared a simple activity that will help kids develop math skills and creativity in an environment that is already nurturing their minds. This is a lovely activity you can set up and do regularly when you want to do some gardening with kids and observe different results. So next time you are out in the garden, take a moment to do this simple yet fun garden math and art activity.

Materials

  • Seeds: we used “cat grass” seeds as they grow pretty easily
  • Mix of natural materials and loose parts: we used stones, leaves, sticks, string, and colorful stones which we had from a local shop
  • Pots with soil
  • Scissors

Preparation

  • Gather natural materials by going on a nature walk or use previously collected treasures
  • Prepare the pots with the soil
  • Bring out all the materials

Gardening With Kids: Math And Art Activity

The math part mainly consists of working on numbers, shapes and patterns. Pattern awareness is key to child development. The ability to recognize and reproduce patterns as well as the ability to predict how a pattern will continue is a skill that positively affects future mathematical understanding and thinking. How to do this: 

  • Start by drawing numbers in the soil
  • Trace with natural materials and work on shapes and patterns as you trace

For example: Draw number 1 and make patterns of 1, draw number 2 and make patterns of 2, or make a circle around number 3 and a triangle around number 4

  • Fill the numbers with seeds
  • Draw more shapes and fill with seeds
  • Cover up 
  • Decorate and play

For the decoration part we used a different pot with soil and let the kids do their thing in a more unstructured way to let them explore at their own pace

  • Optional: make a number/shape map. As you will read below, our numbers didn’t come out quite as clearly as we had hoped for so we had to guess. Drawing a sketch of your pots and having your kids write in the numbers and shapes is a great way to cross-check and also perfect for tying up this educational activity. 

Gardening and Math Talk With Kids

Gardening with kids is good for the body, soul, and mind of everyone involved. It also opens up a whole lot of conversation topics. It is so important that you talk, talk, talk to your kids during activities like this. Observations lead to connections, which lead to discovery. Help them along by giving them the vocabulary they need to express their thoughts and questions. You can also ask some open-ended questions about what they think will happen and why. When gardening with kids there is so much to talk about and this activity also offers you the chance to add in some math talk. Here are some suggestions and conversation topics:

  • What do you think plants need to grow? (water, sun, soil)
  • Talk about the parts of the plant (roots, stem, leaves, flower, seeds)
  • How do you think the plant “drinks” water?
  • Measure the grass as it comes out
  • Count the sprouts as they come out, which pot has more/less?
  • Can we identify the numbers/shapes/patterns? (use the map if you have one)
gardening with kids numbers shapes patterns for preschoolers hands-on activity

Follow-up Activity

We tended to the grass on a regular basis and were quite excited to see it sprout! Unfortunately, the numbers were not as clear as we would have liked them to be, so we had to do some detective work. First we talked about the activity and tried to remember which numbers we had drawn and then we tried to guess by the markings in the soil. It was a good way to reflect on the activity and ask ourselves if there is a better way of doing this. We decided next time we would make a number and shape map and mark where everything went so we could cross check once the grass grew. We also used the chance to work on scissor skills by cutting the grass which was fun and engaging in itself.

Even though the results were not what we expected, this activity gave us the opportunity to talk, observe, and make connections about how our world works. And any activity that gives us the chance to do this is great for us!

For more hands-on number and shape activities:

  • Math Art Project For Kids: Easy DIY Shape Stencils
  • Math For Toddlers: Easy Sensory Bath Time Activity
  • String Rainbow Art Project: Explore Shapes With String
  • Exciting Math Games For Movement And Learning
  • DIY Math Game with Playdough
  • STEM Activity: Build a Pyramid and Learn about Shapes

For more nature activities:

  • Multisensory Learning: The Sound and Feel of Materials
  • STEM Nature Box: Sort, Categorize, And Learn
  • Beautiful Hands-on Activities For Preschoolers: STEM Nature Eggs
  • Simple Science Project For Kids: Float or Sink
  • Nature Puzzles: A Wonderful Way To Explore Shapes
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Discover Color Mixing With This Simple Hands-on Activity

Always have food coloring at home. You never know when the perfect opportunity will present itself to use it for play. This activity was one of those moments in which looking around at what our kid was playing with the thought came to me. What if we added some color to this? We gathered the materials, added some food coloring and voilá, a fun and entertaining color mixing activity! This engaging hands-on color mixing activity to learn colors is so simple and yet very entertaining for little ones as they can see the effects of mixing colors all by themselves. They will also develop their fine motor and critical thinking skills as they try different combinations and observe the results.

hands on color mixing activity with water to learn about colors and develop fine motor skills and critical thinking

Materials For Hands-on Color Mixing Activity

Here are the materials we used but you can always adapt to whatever you have at home. 

  • Plastic syringe
  • Plastic painting tray
  • Containers for mixing water and color (we used the Ikea ice pop maker which was great because it had a stand)
  • Paintbrush and thick paper for later

The plastic syringe was great for motor skills and it did add a level of fun that is different from just pouring from a cup. Also the plastic painting tray added a lovely pretend-play artist vibe to it. 

Preparation and Color Mixing

This is how we did it:

  • We added water to three containers
  • Mixed in the food coloring (just red, yellow and blue)
  • Used the syringe to transfer water to the tray
  • Played and discovered what happened when mixing colors
  • Once the tray was full, our kid decided she wanted to paint with her beautiful palette so that is what she did

This hands-on color mixing activity is perfect for preschool-aged kids to do all by themselves. The only thing I oversaw was adding color because blue tends to be overpowering. Other than that you can sit back and observe or join in the excitement of color mixing!

fine motor skills development practice hands on color mixing activity

Color Talk For Your Hands-On Color Mixing Activity

As always, we encourage you to talk to your kids during these activities. This will help them enrich their vocabulary which is key when learning about new things. Some great ways to engage in conversation and some critical thinking in this hands-on color mixing activity could be:

  • Introduce the concept of primary colors and let them explore to see how many different colors they can create
  • I love that color, what primary colors did you use to create that one?
  • What happens if you mix…?
  • Can you try making…? (trial and error)
  • Have you tried mixing…? What do you think will happen? Let’s see if you were right
  • Talk about tone, what happens if you mix more of one color with just a bit of the other?

There are many opportunities for some great conversations about color and children seem to gravitate towards colorful experiences so this is a great activity for that. Also, playing with water is always so soothing for kids and a great sensory experience.

Explore more…

For more great activities to do with water:

  • Simple Science Project For Kids: Float or Sink
  • Milk The Cow STEM Challenge: Can You Mimic Nature?
  • Math For Toddlers: Easy Sensory Bath Time Activity
  • Save Water Activity: A Simple And Easy Experiment
  • STEM Water Play: 8 Fun Activities to try this Summer

Or more hands-on color mixing activties:

  • 5 Brilliant Ways To Experiment With Oobleck
  • Fun Color Experiment For Toddlers Who Love A Good Mess
  • String Rainbow Art Project: Explore Shapes With String
hands on color mixing activity develop fine motor skills critical thinking and learn about colors with water
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Hands-on Engineering For Kids: How To Make A Wind Farm

There is something mesmerizing about pinwheels. The hypnotic patterns that are created when the colors and shapes turn and blend with the wind. Pinwheels are a great addition to any garden or terrace. They brighten the space up and kids love them! We have been collecting different pinwheels over the years and the other day we brought them all together for this fabulous activity. We created a wind farm and explored many concepts, enriching vocabulary together as we played. It is the perfect activity to engage in some hands-on engineering for kids. In the following post, we will explain how you can build your own wind farm and create a wonderful and playful learning experience. 

hands-on engineering for kids wind farm

Materials For Wind Farm

  • Pinwheels of different shapes, colors and sizes (the more different they are the more comparisons you can make)
  • Stable cardboard box (it needs to be stable enough so that even when you poke holes in it, it will not collapse)
  • Hair dryer or something that will create wind 

Update: We discovered that you can also place the pinwheels in a pot with soil, it will also do the trick!

Wind Farm Tutorial: Hands-on Engineering For Kids 

Here are the steps to creating your own wind farm. Depending on the age of your kids you can involve them in as many steps as possible:

  1. Poke holes into your box and decorate (optional). Make sure the holes are far enough apart so that the pinwheels don’t bump into each other
  2. Place the pinwheels in the holes at different heights and with different orientations
  3. Let the wind blow and discover what happens
  4. Change the pinwheels around and start over or find a windy spot and leave it there to observe when the wind blows

Explore Wind And Engineering Principles With Your Kids

Now that you have your awesome wind farm set up you can take the chance to explore with your kids:

  • Play with different orientations and heights and see how many pinwheels you can get moving at once
  • Observe the different movements of each pinwheel, which ones turn faster/slower, which ones are harder to move…
  • Change the pinwheels around, sort by size, color, number of blades, make patterns…
  • If your hair dryer has different power settings, explore what happens with more or less wind, move your hair dryer closer or farther away. Try just blowing or using another source of wind (hand fan)
  • Explore new vocabulary: talk about wind direction and strength, orientation, height, stability, number of blades and materials

This is such a great hands-on activity for young kids. They get to change small things, like height, position, orientation and observe the effects of these changes. Great for critical thinking and problem solving. It really is hands-on engineering for kids at its best. Remember to discover and find things out together. Wonder out loud and play. The language we use when engaging in educational activities like this one are key for learning.

Playful Question Time

Here are some suggestions for what type of questions to ask when playing together to maximize learning:

  • How many windmills do you think we can move at once? 
  • I wonder what happens if we change the height/position/orientation of this one? Do you think it will move with this other one?
  • From where (what direction) do you think the wind should blow to get these windmills moving?
  • Try pointing your hair dryer and getting the pinwheels moving and then ask: I wonder what would happen if the strength of the wind changes now? Play with the settings.
  • Sometimes the wind is too strong (if you get too close with the hair dryer), is the windmill stable enough?
  • What is happening to the wind? Have your child put their hand between the pinwheels and the hair dryer to feel the wind. Now have them put it behind the turning pinwheels. Does it feel the same? Can they still feel the wind?

Real World Conversations And Reflections

There is so much you can do with this and children will find it fascinating! The great thing about it is that you can have conversations about the real world. Doing an activity like this can lead to challenging conversations about the science behind it and the real world applications. Depending on your children’s age you could try things like: 

  • Why do you think windmills exist? 
  • Do you remember seeing any? How big are they in real life?
  • Where does wind come from or how is it generated?
  • How does a windmill generate electricity? (research together!)

Here is a great explanation of the science and engineering behind wind turbines:

https://www.alliantenergykids.com/RenewableEnergy/WindEnergy

Other fun engineering activities for kids:

  • Fantastic Outdoor Game With Great Learning Potential
  • Milk The Cow STEM Challenge: Can You Mimic Nature?

More fun hands-on activities:

  • Math For Toddlers: Easy Sensory Bath Time Activity
  • STEM Nature Box: Sort, Categorize, And Learn
  • Beautiful Hands-on Activities For Preschoolers: STEM Nature Eggs
  • Simple Science Project For Kids: Float or Sink
  • 5 Brilliant Ways To Experiment With Oobleck
  • Nature Puzzles: A Wonderful Way To Explore Shapes

Happy STEM learning!

hands-on engineering for kids
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Nature Puzzles: A Wonderful Way To Explore Shapes

When we go on walks in the mountains or to the beach we love to bring home little treasures. Stones, shells, sticks… Sometimes we use them right away and sometimes they just sit there waiting to be used for some awesome activity. If you are like us and have piles of treasures lying around your home, we have a wonderful and simple activity you can do with them. So go ahead and gather your materials for a round of nature puzzles. You can also do these puzzles while you are out and about! 

Preparing Your Nature Puzzles

For your nature puzzles you are basically going to need to prepare a frame and then collect materials to fill this frame. It is pretty simple. Here are some suggestions for your frame and fillers:

  • Stick frame to be filled with stones/flowers/leaves
  • Drawing in the sand to be filled with shells/stones
  • Sidewalk chalk drawing to be filled with stones/sticks

Exploring Shapes And Spatial Awareness With Nature Puzzles

The great thing about this activity is that it is full of learning potential. Each time we created a new frame for our puzzle we talked about shapes and I guided (sometimes) with questions like:

  • How many sides do we want our frame to have this time? I wonder what shape that would be?

We built vocabulary and fostered spatial awareness, critical thinking and problem solving: 

  • Do you think we can fill up that space with this piece? 
  • I wonder which stone will fill that space up better? 
  • Can we find anything to go in there?
  • Without overlapping, do you think we can first place big stones and then fill the spaces with the little ones?

The amazing thing is that every time we created a puzzle it was different and beautiful! 

nature puzzles square shapes natural materials
triangle shapes fun nature puzzles
learn shapes with nature puzzles
heart nature puzzle

Important Notes On Guiding The Activity 

I always make sure to not take over the activity and let my kid explore while I observe or engage at her level. It is so important for us parents to let the learning happen at their own pace and only offer occasional observations or questions. When I do ask questions, I make sure that the vocabulary I use involves me as a learning partner and not a teacher/student situation. If you go back to the questions you will notice that I use “we” instead of “you” even though my kid is the one doing the activity. Also, I wonder out loud instead of asking directly. In this way, our kids will get the feeling that we are playing and learning together and that we value their opinion. This has a very positive effect on motivation and learning. 

Hope you enjoy this simple activity and do some nature puzzles with your family.

For other fun nature activties see:

  • Fantastic Outdoor Game With Great Learning Potential
  • Simple Science Project For Kids: Float or Sink
  • Beautiful Hands-on Activities For Preschoolers: STEM Nature Eggs
  • STEM Nature Box: Sort, Categorize, And Learn

Or for more shape activities check these out:

  • STEM Activity: Build a Pyramid and Learn about Shapes
  • Math Art Project For Kids: Easy DIY Shape Stencils

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5 Brilliant Ways To Experiment With Oobleck

Making an experiment with oobleck is very easy and a lot of fun for kids (and adults too!). The name oobleck comes from a Dr. Seuss story and is used commonly nowadays to name a non-newtonian fluid made from cornstarch and water. A non-newtonian fluid is a fluid that does not behave according to Newton’s law of viscosity. In other words, it has a different resistance to flow. It is sensitive to pressure and will change from solid to liquid depending on how much pressure we put on it. Because it is so easy to make at home, and it behaves so differently from other things we know, it creates the perfect environment for sneaking in some STEM learning. 

experiment with oobleck materials

In our house, we love to add color to anything. So when we decided to make some oobleck the other day, we got out our food coloring and added it to the mix. The result was fascinating! Because of the special properties of the mixture the colors created beautiful curves and spirals before mixing. In this post, you will learn how to create rainbow art and more brilliant ways to experiment with oobleck. You will also find out how you can engage with your kids so that they can learn from this experiment. 

Oobleck Recipe

All you need to make oobleck is cornstarch, water, and food coloring. We made it in a large oven tray so that we could spread it out before adding color. This way you will get the beautiful effects I was talking about earlier. You will usually need around twice the amount of cornstarch than water (2 cups of cornstarch to 1 cup of water). These would be the steps to follow:

  1. In a large oven tray add 1 cup of water 
  2. Start adding cornstarch until you reach the desired effect (oobleck should feel hard when you try to make it into a ball but as soon as you stop it will flow through your fingers)
  3. Once you achieve the right consistency let it settle and start experimenting

5 Brilliant ways to experiment with oobleck for STEM learning

Making Oobleck in itself is already an awesome and fun experiment. However,  the experiment doesn’t have to end there! If we want learning to stick, we have to go beyond the initial experiment and allow our children to do some discovery on their own. Here are some suggestions for keeping them engaged and curious about the experiment:

brilliant ways to experiment with oobleck
  • Add drops of color and make some rainbow art. This was our favorite part! Yes… adults enjoy this too!
  • Play with loose parts. We used colorful tops and our kid made towers using the oobleck as glue!! Just collect some objects and leave them around the experiment area and see what your kids come up with
  • Use kitchen utensils and observe how different this mixture is to manipulate compared to water
  • Create droplets outside of the tray. We did this outside on our waterproof tablecloth we use for experiments so we didn’t mind the mess. We let some drops fall out of the tray and observed what happened when they dried out. We compared bigger drops and smaller drops and then we added them back to the tray for more fun effects
  • Make a ramp and let the oobleck flow down. We just put a block under our tablecloth, no fancy ramp needed for this but feel free to make one too. We talked about rivers and lakes with this and how different liquids flow

Check out how our rainbow art turned out in this video:

Experiment with Oobleck observations and conversations

If you are doing this with preschool-aged children it is great to just talk and make observations while you do the experiment. By talking with your kids you are helping them build vocabulary so that they can understand the world better. When we make observations, we help them reflect on what is happening and connect ideas. So here are some suggestions when making the oobleck:

  • Add cornstarch gradually and observe the changes: is it getting harder? 
  • Try to make little balls with your hands: what happens? As soon as you stop trying to roll the oobleck into a ball it will flow across your hand
  • What happens if you poke the oobleck fast? What happens if you just gently put your finger on it? When poking fast the oobleck should behave more like playdough being poked and when going slow it will behave more like pancake batter

For older elementary school kids you can add complexity to your conversation by talking about the following concepts and asking questions:

  • Liquid/solid: when does it behave like a liquid/solid? 
  • Viscosity: how does this mixture flow compared to water? You can use a ramp to compare
  • Pressure/force: when we apply pressure what happens? Does the amount of pressure change the consistency?
  • Color mixing: what happens when we add drops of color? Why do you think it doesn’t mix directly?

We always suggest to wonder out loud with your kids instead of asking question after question. For example, “if I apply pressure I wonder what will happen?” or “what do you think will happen when we add color?”. It is always more fun to discover together than to be drilled.

Follow-up activity: Comparisons

Once you’ve explored oobleck, make something else. We mixed plain wheat flour with water to see how different the results were. It’s good for kids to have something to compare and as a bonus the entertainment lasted even longer!

This is definitely something you can repeat many times and it is always fun. And each time you do it you might find some cool way to play and experiment with oobleck. So make sure to always have cornstarch and food coloring available. 

Happy STEM learning!

Check out other brilliant activities for young kids:

  • Simple Science Project For Kids: Float or Sink
  • Math For Toddlers: Easy Sensory Bath Time Activity
  • Fun Color Experiment For Toddlers Who Love A Good Mess
  • STEM Activity: Build a Pyramid and Learn about Shapes
experiment with oobleck brilliant ways
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Fantastic Outdoor Game With Great Learning Potential

Jump the river is a fun outdoor game for children of all ages to which we can add a STEM learning twist! The game uses rope or anything you have at hand to make a river that children have to jump over. Each time the kids make it over the river, it gets bigger and bigger. It is perfect to do with a group of children and can be done anywhere. I recommend going outdoors and playing this game in nature because it offers many great possibilities to sneak in some STEM! 

jump the river

How To Prepare And Guide The Outdoor Game

First of all you have to create the river. If you are out in nature the best thing to do is to collect some sticks. Then arrange them in parallel lines and keep them close enough together.

Now you need a story! I use the following narrative:

“You live in a village on one side of the river and all the food is on the other side, so each day you have to cross the river to gather food and then cross it again to get back home”

You can even have things for them to collect on the “food side” of the river. Use your imagination to make it more exciting!

Once they’ve gone back and forth for the first time the river gets bigger! I use the following narrative:

“As everyone sleeps there is a big storm and it rains so much that the river grows!” 

At this point separate the sticks so the river is wider and ask your kids if they are still able to gather food! I like playing around with the width of the river, making it narrower at some points and wider at others. You can have them find the shortest/longest route.

This continues until the river is far too wide to cross. Make sure to put the sticks, rope or whatever you are using far enough apart so that no kid can jump over. At this point, it is time to sneak in some problem-solving skills! It is time for some STEM learning!

Sneaking In Some STEM Skills

This outdoor game is perfect to encourage your kids to problem-solve and practice some engineering skills:

“Oh no! Nobody can jump the river and the current is too strong for swimming! How are we going to get food?”

Let the challenging task of crossing the river begin. This will get your kids planning, designing, testing and building to solve a problem. They will become engineers for the day! The great thing, if you are doing this outdoors in nature, is that you have so much material available! 

Talk about the different options, the different materials you have available. Ask questions and then see where their mind takes them. If you can, bring some rope, it always helps.

How to cross the river:

  • Make a bridge out of sticks or stones
  • Build a raft
  • Other creative ways your kids might come up with

Just a heads up, your kid might come up with a sneaky apparently “easy” way to cross the river and avoid all the building you had in mind. My 3-year-old just went for a walk and came back with the biggest palm leaf in the park (it was double her size!!). She lay it over the river and there was no need to build anything, just walk over. We still had fun balancing and talking about what a great solution she had found! At the end of the day she worked through it in her mind and came to her very own conclusion that we needed something BIG. 

Questions For Thinking And Vocabulary

However, if your kids are a bit older, they might have more fun creating something, so here are some questions you can ask as you plan your project:

  • What materials do you think are best for what you are going to do?
  • How are you going to do that?
  • Are you sure it will work? Why?

Explaining a project is a good way to deepen understanding. Communication skills are important in STEM to properly communicate your ideas and it is definitely a skill worth working on! So keep on talking and communicating with your kids while they engage in STEM learning.

I’d love to hear about some of the fun ways your kids came up with to jump the river! So please feel free to share in the comments. Hope you enjoyed this fun outdoor game.

Happy STEM learning!

jump the river outdoor

Check out other fun STEM activities to sneak in some STEM learning:

  • STEM activity: Build a pyramid and learn about shapes
  • Simple Science Project For Kids: Float or Sink
  • Math Art Project For Kids: Shape Stencils
  • STEM project: Engineer a house out of natural materials
  • STEM challenge: The Tower of Random Things
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Hi! We are Anni and Stefan, a mix of engineering with a dash of education and a pinch of social work, blended together and turned into parents who have a passion for creating lightbulb moments. We want to help you bring STEM learning into your home in a way that is fun, educational and challenging enough so that children can develop their thinking skills. ♥

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astemfulmind

Anni | STEM + Nature Learning
Where will the marble roads take you? 🚗🚦🚧 Where will the marble roads take you? 🚗🚦🚧 🧱
One day we set out to make some mazes or marble runs with clay. I thought my kids would each want to do their own but it ended up being a team project and I'm so glad it went that way! Our project turned into Marble city, with roads and many more fun things along the way. 
I drew a road with a start and a finish, a few loops here and there and some intersections so that they could cover it with clay. And then I just let their imagination take the lead. The beauty of open-ended activities and resources is you never know where it will take you. There were trees, mountains, tunnels, bridges and even stop lights! And after it was created there was imaginative play, role play and a lot of marble traffic!
It was fascinating to observe my kids build a world from clay and other resources we had around the house. The process of building it was play and then that play was extended and transformed by actually playing in the world they created 🧡
It is also definitely something that can be done outside. We did it out on our terrace but I'm excited to try it out in nature where there are even more open-ended resources!! 🌿🌰🍂🌸🪨
Learning new things ✨🥰 I have started a new Learning new things ✨🥰
I have started a new journey, training to be a Forest School Leader. I am not exactly sure in which direction it will take me but it was something that felt right. 
The ethos of Forest school and the role of the reflective practitioner just resonates with me, the outdoor, simple and slow child-led playful learning community. It is what I try to do with my own children and it's wonderful to extend and consolidate everything that I have learned over the last years into something that will serve me and my family as well as other families with children. 
I am very excited to show you how I adapt the Forest School practice to my parenting. We have already created some pretty cool indoor shelters, hammocks for dolls with ropes and cloth, and continue to use our natural materials for child-led experiments and activities. I am also learning to observe my children better and reflect on their needs and interests, which is key to their holistic growth and development.
Hope you find this as inspiring as I do and follow along for some reflections and of course for the nature play and wonder 💚🧡
The wonder of simple experimentation ✨ When you The wonder of simple experimentation ✨
When you let the child lead you never know what will happen. Sometimes nothing really happens, and that's ok too. But then there are times when you bring out some materials and "tools", add a bit of water and you suddenly have a full on experiment station on your hands!
I saved some pumpkin seeds from a pumpkin I had baked, thinking they might come in handy some time. I didn't have anything in mind, but when my 5-year-old said she wanted to do an experiment I offered them to her. 
She directly asked for water to check if pumpkin seeds sink or float. So we gathered water, some containers and a few extra tools (just some kitchen utensils). Turns out some actually sink and others float! We discussed why this might be happening and then I asked her if she thought she could find a way to separate them with the tools we had… this led to some critical thinking, some trial and error and a lot of experimentation and conversations. She was engaged, on a mission, and she had initiated the experiment herself. 
💜 I love watching these moments unfold and they just further convince me that experiments don't need to come with flashy reactions, or bright colors. They can be simple, like this one. Experiments should make us think, tickle our minds with questions about what we see and drive us to test possibilities that will reveal answers, solutions or rethink our questions. And childhood is full of moments like these if you look close enough.
The art of noticing the small details 🐚✨ A s The art of noticing the small details 🐚✨
A simple activity with natural materials and a magnifying glass. I just set this up on the table and we started looking at each material and paying attention to what we could see. It made us think and wonder about patterns, irregularities and just other things we might not notice otherwise. 
We learned to pay attention to details and that things might look different depending on how close you look. And these observations lead to questions and these questions lead to a search for answers, discovery, learning. 
And all it takes is a magnifying glass and some nature 🤎🧡
DIY OOBLECK BLOCKS 🧱🌽💧 These Oobleck blo DIY OOBLECK BLOCKS 🧱🌽💧
These Oobleck blocks are so easy to make and were a perfect addition to our dry Oobleck play as it gave us the chance to build structures and create small worlds. 
Materials you'll need:
🌽Cornstarch
💧Water
🧊Ice trays
🧘‍♀️Patience
To prepare the Oobleck you mix 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water. If you have never tried Oobleck you are in for a fun treat! It is a great sensory experience for kids and really engaging as it behaves both like a solid or fluid depending on the pressure it's under. 
Once you are done experimenting with Oobleck try filling some ice cube trays with it and then let it dry (it can take some days, which can be tricky for little kids but is also a great opportunity to practice patience).
❗A lot of ours cracked and broke so make sure you prepare enough. We made 3 trays.
🧱 That's it! We crushed some of the broken blocks and used the other ones to create, nurturing some STEM skills through play. 
For more ideas for STEM and nature play follow along!
"If children are to keep alive their inborn sense "If children are to keep alive their inborn sense of wonder… they need the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in." Rachel Carson
These words truly resonate with me.
Sharing the path of learning and discovery with our children is so beneficial and not only for our kids. It is so positive for us too! It reawakens our inner child, our own sense of wonder. It allows us to slow down, to play. 
We explore together, we seek out the answers to our questions, we experiment and play, we struggle to find solutions, we persevere and through these experiences we learn. About the world, about each other, about ourselves, giving us the chance to bond over something beautiful.
👉 Follow along for inspiration on family activities that nurture curiosity and drive learning
Have you ever let Oobleck dry? ☀️ Letting Oob Have you ever let Oobleck dry? ☀️
Letting Oobleck dry is the best way to clean it up but it also gives you the chance to use it again in a different way. 
I like to leave it in a tray or cooking pan so it spreads out and dries faster. Once it's dry you can just poke it and scrape it out.
It crumbles and cracks nicely between your fingers and has a lovely texture that my kids (and I) really enjoy.
You can keep it dry or combine it again with water to get the gooey, slimy, and fascinating Oobleck back.
👉 I'm also testing a different way to use dry Oobleck so make sure you stay tuned!
DIY STONE STACKING GAME 🌈🪨 Stone stacking h DIY STONE STACKING GAME 🌈🪨
Stone stacking has many benefits, for both kids and adults. It encourages patience, creative processing, concentration, focus, and hand-eye coordination. We love doing this when we are outdoors and in nature, it gives us a moment to stop and relax. 
This simple DIY is inspired by all those stone stacking moments and adds a bit of a challenge to nurture those skills even more. 
👉 This is how we prepared it:
We collected stones and selected 6 of them for the game, we painted them using acrylic paints, and borrowed a color dice from one of our board games. If you don’t have a color dice just add stickers to a normal one.
👉 How we played:
Players take turns to roll the dice, find the stone that matches the color and place it on the stack. 
🌈 It’s pretty simple, but it adds a new layer to simple stacking, as you navigate having to put bigger and heavier stones on top. It also encourages problem solving, conversations and observations which are key drivers of learning. 
💫 For more simple nature and STEM play you can take outdoors and that nurtures learning make sure to follow along
Motherhood is definitely reawakening my childlike Motherhood is definitely reawakening my childlike curiosity and wonder 💫🌱🦴 
As we were on one of our nature walks one day we found some animal bones in the forest and our reaction was… wow!! Let’s take them home! After packing them in a bag, we decided it would be a good idea to clean them before examining them.
A quick google research revealed that we could use hydrogen peroxide to clean and whiten the bones. Gloves on and to work!
With great care we handled the bones and the hydrogen peroxide, saw the fizzy bubbles come out and observed the reaction (a bit of chemistry at play here!) We talked about what was happening and about the bones themselves, how they are different from ours, what type of animal they could be from according to their teeth (herbivore?) and a lot more.
This process of curiosity, hands-on exploration and discovery is a key part of childhood. Children are naturals at this, and if we follow along and support this process who knows what amazing things we might discover together. What is certain is that by exploring together like this we are nurturing their natural curiosity, cultivating a love for discovering new things and giving them the tools to drive their own learning. 
Never would I have thought that cleaning bones would turn into a great hands-on learning experience. But I have learned that following my children usually leads to moments of discovery like this.
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