Exciting Math Games For Movement And Learning

If you are stuck at home and want to find fun and engaging ways to sneak in some math I have your back! I have gathered some fun home math games that you can do with your children (mostly toddler and preschooler level) that require minimum preparation and are fun for all. The idea behind this post is not to have an extensive list of activities but rather to collect just a few different games to sneak in some learning. The home math games I have selected get your kids moving and learning at the same time and require materials that you have at home or that can easily be replaced. I even hope that they might inspire you to create your own games with the materials you have at home. I have also added some observations and suggestions for each activity on how you can guide the learning and make it an educational experience. So keep reading and reconnect with your family through play.

1. Math Twister from Math Geek Mama

A fun twist on Twister! This is a great opportunity to get your children moving a bit and sneaking in some adding practice. If your child is still too young for adding you can just do it with number recognition in the following way:

Each time you play you can let each color represent different numbers (for example, 1 to 4 the first time you play 5 to 8 the next time)
Cover the circles on the mat with the numbers and then start playing
Use the spinner or just call out numbers and body parts: this is a great way to be creative and mix it up especially if your kids don’t know right from left so just go with the flow and don’t be afraid to call out elbow to 3!

If you don’t have the game of Twister at home you can make it yourself! It is pretty simple to make but here are a few suggestions to include your kids. You can also just prepare everything yourself and have it as a surprise for them:

Collect colored paper (If you don’t have colored paper just plain paper and color it yourself): 6 red, 6 green, 6 blue and 6 yellow
Optional: Outline the number for each color on the paper and have your kids trace the numbers with whatever you have (colored pencils, paint, stickers). You can also do this yourself
Optional: Let your kids cut around the numbers
Tape the numbers to the floor and start the fun!
I plastified the numbers to be able to use more than once and for other games on this post (takes a bit longer but is worth the effort)

The good thing about making it yourself is you can use the numbers for the other games or find other ways to use them. You can also make it smaller for smaller kids! Also, if you are making this yourself you can create a “shapes twister”. Instead of having each color represent a number have each color be a shape! Square, circle, triangle and rectangle.

2. Number Swat from Aussie Childcare Network

Fun and fast paced game that will help your children with number recognition! If you don’t have enough fly swatters at home you can just use your hands to slap the number. You can make your own number cards:

My suggestion would be to have the numeral (1,2,3…) on one side and dots on the other side so you can change it around.
Additionally it is best to color-code each different number. So for example, all ones are green and all twos are red and so on. Color coding will help your child learn and remember things easier.
If you don’t have dice, prepare additional number cards that you can flip

3. Snowball Math Game from frugalfun4boys

Great game to get your kids moving around and learning math! I love this one and it is very well explained and even offers cards to print. If you don’t have enough baskets or don’t have snowballs here are my suggestions:

If you don’t have baskets use shoe boxes, pots, empty some drawers… I’m sure you can find things around your house
If you don’t have snowballs the writer recommends using rolled up socks! Great idea!

4. Shape race from the web (I have not been able to find the original source)

The link for this game is just a photograph. I have not been able to find the original source but it is quite clear how you can prepare and play this game:

Preparation:

Collect 4 sets of colored paper or color your own paper
For each color, cut out a shape (square, circle, triangle, and rectangle)
Make a big dice: click here for a tutorial for making paper dice
You have four shapes and six sides on the dice so here are a few suggestions for what you could put on those extra sides:
- All shapes on both extra
- Two shapes on one side and the other two on the other one (for example, circle and square on one side and triangle and rectangle on the other)

Play:

Choose a shape and stand at the beginning
Roll the dice
First one to the end wins!

That’s it for now! I hope you enjoyed this round-up and that you have found some inspiration for some fun Stay At Home Math! Get your kids moving and learning and reconnect as a family.

More Fun Activities and Games:

Make sure to Bookmark the Stay At Home STEM post which will be updated with all our fun STEM activities that are perfect for doing at home.

Great Engaging Activity: Fun Ways To Use Straws

Questioning and thinking outside of the box are such important skills, not only for STEM, but for life in general. By exposing your children to experiences that require them to look at things differently you are helping them to develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills. In the Stay At Home Discover series I will be giving you tips and ideas for using everyday objects in fun and engaging ways. Invite your children to discover ways to use these objects and have fun experimenting.

In the last week we have been finding new and exciting ways to use straws! From using them as building materials to blowing bubbles every time is a great chance to sneak in some STEM learning. In this case, I refer to STEM learning as sharpening those problem-solving and critical thinking skills and not necessarily the Science Technology Engineering and Math aspect.

How can you guide the learning?

I will be giving you some ideas of what we have been doing with straws but feel free to explore and come up with your own ideas. Depending on your kids age you can then collect the materials from each activity and invite them to find ways to use or play with them. Or you could just gather some straws and without any guidance let them collect things around the house that they could use to create or play in any way they want.

Activities we have been doing

Bear in mind that our daughter is almost 3 years-old so if you have older/younger kids you might need to adapt the activities.

Bring straws to bathtime!

This was so fun! We started by just blowing air through the straw into the bath water and to her surprise bubbles started coming out! Our daughter also tried drinking the bath water and spit it back out so be prepared for this. Then we started making soap bubbles with the straw. For this we got some toy cups, put some soap and water in it and just blew with the straw. We were amazed to see how the bubbles came out! We experimented by blowing fast, blowing slow and watching how the bubbles changed. It was so fun we did it a few days later outside!

Preparation

For this activity you will need:

Straws
Small plastic cups
Soap
Water

How to sneak in some critical thinking:

Invitation to create: Lay out the materials and ask them what you could do with them
Once you are set up blowing bubbles you can ask:
- What will happen if we blow faster/slower?
- What happens to the water when we blow bubbles?

Use straws for moving things around

Feed the bunny

I had some colorful pom poms lying around from when I did activities with kids on the weekends so I brought these out to use with the straws. If you don’t have pom poms you could use ping pong balls or cotton balls or even try making some balls out of cello tape and paper. We also had a bunny rabbit made out of cardboard so we brought that out and tried to feed the bunny by blowing the pom poms into the bunny’s mouth. You can turn this into a game by seeing how much food you can get into the bunny’s mouth in X amount of time. (I’ll leave it up to you to decide on the time).

Get the ball through the maze

Another day we used our blocks to make a maze and tried getting the ball from one side to the other. This can be done as a race (you can time each person) or it can be done as a collaborative game.

These games are great for older kids and younger kids just enjoy discovering what they can do with straws. As I write this I am thinking that it would also be fun to suck the air in through the straw and try to get the balls from one point to another. I’ll leave you with that thought and see what fun games you can come up with.

Preparation

Materials you will need:

Straws
Balls to push/carry around (pom poms, ping pong balls, cotton balls, paper balls…)
Containers to push the balls into or drop them into (fun animals made out of cardboard, plastic cups, tupperware…)
Materials to make a maze or a road: blocks, tin foil (have fun creating the road too!)

How to sneak in some problem-solving and critical thinking:

Invitation to create: Lay out the materials and ask your kids what you could do with them
If you have been blowing the balls around, change something in the game and ask them how they would get the balls around now. For example, if the container was horizontal so you could push the balls in put it in a position so that you have to suck the air in and carry the balls in or maybe use two straws to pick the balls up

Use straws for creating objects:

Bring out some straws, something that will connect them (we used scotch tape) and start creating!

Ideas for things you can create:

2D Shapes (this is what we did)
3D Shapes
Bridges
Towers
Houses
Ramps (slides for toys)
Any type of structure really

Preparation

Materials you will need:

Straws
Something to connect the straws (playdough, tape…)
Scissors (to adjust the size of the straws)

How to sneak in some problem-solving and critical thinking:

Invitation to create: Lay out the materials and ask your kids what you could do with them
Challenges: How can we make a bridge strong enough to hold a book? How can we make a tower as tall as…? How can we make 3D shapes out of the 2D ones we already made? Is it possible to make a slide for your toys?
If we just use 5/10… straws what can we create?

For the challenges you can also do some research online with your kids beforehand. This is a great way to get your kids motivated about the activity and you are teaching them to research before starting a project which is so important in STEM! For bridges for example you can google “bridge” and look at the images and see which one you could create.

More Fun Activities and Games:

Make sure to Bookmark the Stay At Home STEM post which will be updated with all our fun STEM activities that are perfect for doing at home.

Have fun and discover new ways to use everyday objects!

So these are the ways in which we discovered straws and I hope you can find some fun and engaging ways too! Enjoy the time with your kids and reconnect with your family through play, exploration and discoveries!

Multisensory Learning: The Sound and Feel of Materials

Learning new things while using your senses helps create a stronger connection to the concepts you are learning. By involving different senses during an educational experience we help our kids learn in a more engaging way. We also help deepen the knowledge they acquire through the experience. This multisensory learning activity aims to teach children about different materials through less-used senses such as hearing and touch. It is a great activity for parents and/or teachers to introduce or reinforce the topic of materials.

I remember when I was studying to be an engineer, any class related to materials was extremely boring. A lot of information about their properties and characteristics was thrown at us and we were just expected to memorize it. The problem with this type of learning is that you will not retain the information for long and it is a pity because materials are extremely important in STEM-related fields. One needs to be able to select the appropriate materials for a specific project that has specific requirements. Having said this, I believe that giving children the chance to explore the topic of materials in a more hands-on approach will give them a positive connection to the subject. And this always helps with motivation and learning!

Preparation and Guidance

This multisensory learning activity will help children explore materials and their properties by using their hands and ears! So the first thing you need to do is gather objects made out of different materials. Here are some suggestions:

Wood
Plastic
Textile (wool, cotton, silk)
Metal (coins)
Ceramic
Paper
Here is a page with different types of materials and properties: http://www.lovemyscience.com/facts-materials.html

Once you have collected the materials it is time to explore. For younger kids, select 3 different materials to start with. If they like the activity and are motivated you can start it all over again with 3 new materials. For older kids, you could start with 5. Begin by telling them that you are going to explore these objects just with your hands. Tell them to close their eyes and grab an object. Once they have it in their hands ask them some of the following questions (write down the answers):

Does it feel hard or soft?
Is it heavy or light?
Is it flexible or stiff? Can it bend without breaking?
Does it feel rough or smooth?

Now that you have explored some materials with your hands it is time to use your ears! For each material look at your answers and then try to make a sound with the object by hitting it, scratching it or any other way you can think of. Try to find a connection! Connections always make information stay longer in the brain 😉

Is there any connection between the way a material sounds and its properties?

Finally, after you have explored and looked for connections it is time to play a game and have some fun with what you learned!

Multisensory Learning Activity: Guess the Material

The STEM game is a simple guessing game in which kids will need to use their hands and ears to identify the materials. Basically, you will ask your children to close their eyes and then either give them an object they have to explore with their hands or make a sound with one of the objects. See if they can guess the type of material! Depending on your children’s’ age they can either guess directly with their eyes closed or they can give the object back to you and you mix it in with the other objects. When they open their eyes they have to look at the objects and try to guess which one it was.

To make it a bit more educational they can also try to identify properties first before they say what type of material it is. For this, you would first ask the same questions you did at the beginning with slight variations depending on if they are touching or listening:

Does it feel/sound hard or soft? Heavy or light? Flexible or stiff? Rough or smooth?

If children know the properties well you can ask in the following way:

What do you think if feels/sounds like?

I challenge you to try it out with them and not just be the moderator! Play with your kids and see if you can also guess the materials! We rely so heavily on sight that even these simple activities might be a bit more complicated than we expect. You could even try your sense of smell for this activity! Who knows what you might discover. I hope you enjoyed this little activity and that you have fun giving your senses some time to explore something different.

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

For more information about STEM and how to transform your STEM activities at home, check out these posts:

My Pattern Book: Pattern Recognition And Art On The Go

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. Math is made out of patterns and logical sequences, so the earlier our kids start with pattern awareness the better! This is why I created the pattern book, so your children can record the patterns they see while on the go. Whether you are waiting around at the airport or doing a nature walk, patterns can be spotted anywhere. And what better way to help them learn and exercise that part of the brain than keeping a record of them. It is also a great way of introducing some scientific skills, such as observation and note-taking.

Pattern awareness includes recognizing patterns, identifying the relationship between its elements (for every blue tile there is two green), observing regularities and isolating the unit that is repeating. With this pattern book, your children will work on their pattern awareness by looking for patterns in their surroundings. They will then reproduce them in their book and will be asked to describe them. It has a brief introduction with types of patterns. This simple activity can be done at any time with your children and it will greatly help them with their pattern recognition skills.

Free Pattern Book

To create the booklet first download the booklet. Print as many Pattern and Pattern Art pages as you want. In order to put the booklet together fold the front cover and cut all other pages in half. Arrange them accordingly and insert them into the folded front cover and then staple everything together.

Link to the free printable: My Pattern Book

Other fun ways to practice pattern awareness:

You can use this booklet to create some pattern art! At the end of the book, you will find some blank pages with some crisscrossing lines. To create some art, select a pattern for each blank space and reproduce different patterns using different colors. The results will amaze you!

Another thing you can do with your kids is to go over their patterns and ask them the following question:

If your pattern were made out of sounds, what would it sound like?

Collect some objects you can bang on and try to reproduce as many patterns as possible. Have fun discovering new rhythms in the patterns.

Hope you enjoy the book and collect a lot of interesting patterns!

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

Happy STEM learning!

STEM Road Trip Experiment

With the holiday season starting, plans are starting to be made, maybe even packing has begun. As your trip comes close you may be wondering, if you are traveling by car, how to keep the kids entertained for such long hours of just sitting. I have a fun STEM road trip experiment for you that will engage them and to keep them off screens for a while! You will find a free printable at the end of this post that you can use for the experiment.

The STEM Road Trip Experiment

This experiment aims to answer one or more of the following simple questions:

What is the most/least popular car color?
How many people are found in a car more/less often?
What is the most/least popular car brand?

So, how to find out the answer to this question? Just as a scientist would. Observe and collect data of a sample (the cars you drive by). But first, get your kids to guess (or hypothesize) about the answer first and write it down.

Once your children have written down their hypotheses it is time to start collecting data. Before you start the experiment, you can decide on a sample size, or in other words, decide how many cars you need to get an accurate result. Since this might be difficult to keep track of, I would suggest you decide how long your kids will be tallying up those cars, for example until the next gas station or 15min. Once that has been decided it is time to fill out the printable. For whatever question they choose they are going to have to look out the window, observe the cars they see and keep a tally of the different options. Here is an example of what the printable would look like once your kids start filling it out:

The results of your STEM road trip experiment

Once you are finished count and write the total of each option and find out if anyone guessed correctly! You can turn this into a game by giving points to whoever guessed right and do it more than once for each question and for a different amount of time. You can also turn it into a collaborative game if you have more than one kid in the car. For example, they can help each other; one looks out one window and the other out the other and they each collect information and then you add it together or one looks and the other one writes down the results. There are many combinations possible, depending on age and interest, feel free to find what works best for your kids.

Time for some reflective thinking

It is always a good idea to reflect back on the experiment you just did to see the results in context. By looking back you realize that there are some connections between the results and something hidden. For example, if you are traveling to a touristy location for families, as you approach your destination you will probably start to see more cars with families in it (more passengers) and the brand of the car will probably be a family friendly brand (probably not many sports cars). Examples of things you can reflect on with your kids and think about how the results might vary:

Time of day
Close to big cities or far from them
Holiday season
Location (beach, mountains, family destination, airport…)

Here is the link for the printable, you can print out a few of each experiment to have extras. There is also a blank experiment page at the end that you can use for your own experiment! See what questions you can come up with!

Here is the printable for the experiment: STEM Road Trip Experiment

Hope this experiment brings you some peace during long hours of driving. Let me know if you thought of any other fun questions!

For other fun STEM experiments check these posts out:

For tips on how to transform your STEM activities:

5 tips to transform your STEM activities at home

Happy STEM learning!

STEM Water Play: 8 Fun Activities to try this Summer

With hot summer days around the corner and school out, it is time to start thinking about what you can do to entertain your kids. If at the same time you can keep them cool and help them learn then it is definitely a bonus! In this post, I have gathered some great water play activities your children will enjoy and I have added some observations about how you can add some STEM learning to them. All activities are low prep and lots of fun! So keep reading and check them out.

8 STEM Water Play Activities:

1. Build a rain gutter river from frugalfun4boys

This activity gets your children transferring water. This on its own is quite entertaining but here are some suggestions so you can sneak in some learning opportunities:

What materials can you use to block the water from flowing? Which are better? Try out different materials and see what happens
How can you get water to flow faster or slower?

2. Water transfer activity with sponges from livewellplaytogether

Such a great little activity with so much learning potential! This activity aims to teach toddlers about absorbency and again, water transferring. She offers questions and keywords at the end of the post so you’re good to go with this one!

3. Summer fun idea: How to make tinfoil rivers from 3littlegreenwoods

Another easy water activity that can wake up some STEM thinking. In this post, you will find an activity to build a river using only tinfoil! That’s it! So simple. The good thing about such simple activities is that you can add difficulty or challenges to it and keep the kids entertained. Some added challenges you could include with this activity:

Obstacle course: Mark a starting point and ending point and add some obstacles they have to go through.
Build a dam: to collect water at a certain point. What materials will they use to stop the water? Where will you put your water entrance and exit if you want to collect as much water as possible without blocking it?
Build a bridge: How can they get water to go over a bridge? Does it need to go fast or slow?
Water race: Make different rivers but they all have to have the same elements, for example, 4 curves (should they be close together or far apart?), a bridge that goes over a big stone, a dam with water entrance and exit diagonal from each other. Have a bucket at the end of each river and start pouring! See who is the first to fill up the bucket

4. Colored water play from messymotherhood

Water and colors! Such a good combination. With this activity, children get to explore mixing colors and finding out about new colors! Here are some color conversations you can have with your children while they are playing (or after as a reminder of the fun they had):

What color combinations were you able to make?
What happens when you mix colors in the same proportion? In different proportions (for example, 3 cups of red with 1 cup of blue)?
What happens when you mix all colors?
How many green/orange… tones can you create?

5. DIY Water wall for summer STEM from littlebinsforlittlehands

Engineering, science and math all in one! Making a water wall is a fun and engaging activity that has a lot of learning potential. Just making it and then playing with it, observing what happens when you pour water is great for learning but if you want to go a step further and challenge your kids to think a bit more you could include things like:

Can you add an element to your wall to make water flow faster/slower?
Can you exchange two pieces and keep the water flowing?

6. Water displacement experiment from happyhooligans

This great activity teaches kids about water displacement. She does a great job of explaining the concept and how to engage children with this activity. Some additional things you could do with older kids or to see if they grasped the concept:

Categorize your stones by size or weight
Make a couple of lines on your container and ask children to try and find the stone that will displace the water until that line
Ask them to use the least possible number of stones to get the water out of the container

7. STEM experiment: float or sink from astemfulmind

A classic float or sink experiment. You can use it for all different ages. Just start collecting objects to see if they float or sink. If you want to dig a bit deeper this post will guide you on how to use the scientific method (with a free printable) to find out an answer to the question: Why do things float or sink? Let your little scientists discover how the world of water works!

8. Stick raft building STEM project from kidscraftroom

Another classic, build a boat or raft. This post is great and explains how they built a boat following an engineering design process. It also sneaks in some different challenges you could do. Great fun and learning!

That’s it for now! I hope you enjoyed this round-up and that you have found some inspiration for some fun STEM water-play this summer!

For more information about STEM and how to transform your STEM activities at home, check out these posts:

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

Happy STEM learning,

Fun Color Experiment For Toddlers Who Love A Good Mess

Before you start reading I would like to clarify something about this post. The idea behind this sensory stem experiment was to see if we could make different jello color combinations to explore colors with a sensory side to it. The blending colors part was a bit of a “fail” but it was so much fun and it opened up the chance to talk about colors while experimenting with our sense of touch. And because STEM is all about making mistakes and learning from them I wanted to share this with you anyway. Even though the colors won’t mix properly, you still see certain hints of new colors and it is a great way to engage your child in some messy sensory play. A heads up, it can get really messy so I would suggest to do it outside and have some old towels to wipe your kid’s hands.

But for now, I will share the experiment with you and the activity as it was still a very fun way to talk about colors! And with a failed experiment you also learn something, so it’s a great way to teach this to your kids too. So I will describe the preparation and then suggest a few ways you can guide the experiment to create some learning from it.

Preparation

My daughter helped me prepare the jello beforehand so she was very excited to do the experiment later. This type of motivation is great for any experiment! At this point, you can introduce the experiment and make some hypotheses of whether or not mixing the jello will mix the colors. Write your hypothesis down for later, or any other thoughts you might come up with. Time to prepare our experiment!

Things you will need for the preparation:

Clear jello mix
Food coloring (we just used the primary colors: red, yellow and blue)
Small containers to separate colored jello

Prepare the jello following the instructions on the package, before putting into the fridge, separate into small containers and add food coloring, mix with a spoon until it’s dissolved and has a strong color. Once the jello has cooled down, it is time to start the experiment!

Fun Color Experiment

So let’s go ahead and take a look at what the experiment could look like. The idea was the following; to mix jello with food coloring and once it gets cold try to mix different color jello to make new colors. I know now that once jello gets cold you can’t really mix it together and therefore you can’t blend colors (I’m sure there is some science behind that and I will look into it to update the post in the future). Things you will need for the sensory STEM experiment:

Colored jello
Big bowls where the mixing magic will (or will not) happen (we used 2)
Old towels or cloth that you don’t mind getting dirty to wipe off the jello

Now it’s time to have some messy playful fun! Bring out the colored jello and try mixing different colors (with your hands!) in the bigger bowls and see what happens. It is so good for children to feel different textures and playing with jello is quite interesting! It is very beneficial to use your senses when learning and while they have their hands in the jello you can have some good talks about colors!

Observation and conversation guide for the experiment

The main thing to do with toddlers is talk, talk, talk. Have conversations about what is happening, make observations. This will help build vocabulary. The term “hypothesis” might be a bit over their heads but you can start to use the concept. Ask them if they think colors will mix and write a big YES or NO. Color-code it for better understanding, YES-Green or NO-Red. Put your prediction on the fridge and go explore other things until it is ready. Just like real experiments that usually require time, jello takes time to cool down.

Next up, when it’s time for the experiment, grab your “hypothesis” and all the jello containers. Put it all out and let the mess begin! I suggest saving some containers for later and just letting your kids play first. If possible, you can try answering following questions:

What happens to the colors when we mix the jello? Is your paper right or wrong?
Does it mix better or worse with different combinations of colors? (try all three combinations and see if there are any differences)
What actually happens?
Why do you think it happens?

Feel free to get messy too and observe while your toddler plays. Point things out and start some color conversations. Here are some suggestions of observations you can make and what you can talk about:

Look at what happened when I mixed these colors!
If your kid is receptive, you can explain the colors you have and introduce the concept of primary colors
Ask your kid to pass you some colors. Can I have the blue and yellow? What do you think blue and yellow make?
Explain color combinations and what new colors they create (you will see a faint hint of new colors when mixing the jello)

And that’s it! A simple color experiment that will keep your children entertained and will allow them to “feel” colors! I hope you can enjoy this experiment with them and if anyone knows what the scientific concept behind the jello color not mixing please let me know in the comments!

Want to know how to transform your STEM activities at home? Check out this post:

5 tips to transform STEM activities at home

Other fun activities to sneak in some STEM learning:

Happy STEM learning!

DIY Math Game with Playdough

Playdough is such a versatile, fun toy. My daughter loves playing with it. We make food for her stuffed animals and dolls, we make them into balls and organize colors, she ends up just mixing all of them but that’s fun for her too! We were playing the other day and together we prepared a little game for her. She had fun and I was inspired! I love having these moments 🙂 So after she was done playing I decided I could build on the little game and make it into a fun DIY math game for older children (my daughter just turned 2 as I write this).

This is a great game you can use to help your children with pre math skills, patterns, and colors. Handling the little balls of playdough will stimulate their fine motor skills especially in early childhood. It is also made out of things you probably have at home, it is easy and takes less than 10 minutes to prepare. As a bonus, it is very easy to transport and you can take it on trips or any place you might need to wait for a while. I will start by describing the DIY part of the game and then suggest a few ways you can play. Feel free to invent your own games too!

Materials you will need:

This is such a short list! For this game you will need:

Playdough: commercial one or DIY one (there are some great recipes online, for example: https://www.diynatural.com/homemade-playdough-recipe/ )
Egg carton: we used a 6-egg one because we don’t have that many colors but you could also use a 12-egg one

Preparation of the Math Game:

Start by choosing the 6 colors you will use. Then, using a little bit of playdough, squeeze a piece of each color into each egg-holder space until it’s flat against the bottom. Then make 10 balls that you can put into the top part of the egg carton. That’s it! It should look something like this:

The Math Game:

Time to play! Ask your child to collect a certain number of balls. You do this by getting balls and putting them into the corresponding egg-holder. Once you collect them all, you ask your child to create a pattern. I suggest having your own set of playdough balls and starting the pattern and let your child follow it or copy it. Depending on your child’s age they can then count them all together or add the different colors.

Other Ways of Playing:

There are a few other ways you can use this game, feel free to adapt/invent additional fun games to suit your children:

Sensory play: Ask your child to close their eyes and put some balls in the egg carton. Hide the remaining balls. Your child can then open their eyes, shake the box, and try to guess how many balls are inside. Depending on your child’s age you can then open the egg carton up and count them or you can show them the remaining balls and they have to subtract. Changing from a visual to a more acoustic setting requires more thoughtfulness from the child. It’s a great exercise to try to control their impulsive behaviour and deal with external distractions. Even if it is just for a short period of time.
Color and memory: Start with one ball of each color on the table and ask your child to look at them closely and then close their eyes. Put one ball in the egg carton and ask your child to open their eyes and guess what color is missing. You can increase the difficulty by hiding more than one color. What seems at a first glance relatively easy will turn out challenging for the mind of the child. One or two missing colours will be hard to identify for toddlers. What may seem simpple for us, requires a lot of attention and concentration in the early years of our life.

Hope you enjoyed this fun and simple game and that your children have fun with it. Let me know in the comments if you or your children came up with other fun ways to use this DIY game.

For more information about STEM and how to transform your STEM activities at home, check out these posts:

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

Happy STEM learning!

STEM math counting DIY playdough math game

STEM Challenge: The Tower of Random Things

One day as I was cooking, my daughter was next to me on her helping tower doing her own stuff. At one point I turned around and I saw she had made a tower out of some cans, a sponge and her toy pig. I thought to myself, what a great way to think outside the box! Of course, we can use building blocks and lego to make a tower because that is what they were designed for. But what happens when we don’t have this at hand? What happens when we just have some cans, a sponge and a toy hippo and we need to build a tower? A STEM challenge!

Coming up with solutions to a problem with the resources at hand is a challenge that many engineers face on a daily basis. Finding creative ways to use the things you have or to solve problems is linked to what Edward de Bono coined lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is a way of reasoning that involves breaking through preconceptions (we can only build a tower with our building blocks) in order to see things in a different way (random objects as “building blocks”). This activity is great if you want to help your child unlock their lateral thinking abilities and encourage them to think outside the box. In addition, you are getting them to work on their creativity and problem-solving skills through a bit of trial-and-error play.

Preparation

Before we start the activity we need to collect some random objects. Your kids can be involved in this part or not. If they are, don’t reveal what the objects will be for, just tell them you are collecting some things for a fun project you want to do with them later. Make them a bit curious about the big fun project you are preparing! As you collect stuff you can ask them what they think the project is going to be, get their minds working. You might even discover something more fun to do with a bunch of random things!

Here you have a list of suggestions when collecting the objects (sometimes totally random might be difficult, remember we are trying to create educational moments and we might need to guide the activity a bit):

Try to have both heavy and light objects so they can experiment with weight
Collect some objects that have flat surfaces and others with rounded or uneven surfaces so they can experiment with stability and balancing
Gather different materials; wood, plastic (tupperwares, toys, straws), cloth (cushions), tin (full or empty cans), cardboard (shoe boxes), sponges
Collect around 10 objects
For the challenge part, we are going to need an object that generates wind! A fan, or if you don’t have one, some cardboard pieces from a box. (We will use this to simulate a hurricane!)

The STEM Challenge

Ok, the moment of truth has arrived, we now have to use those crazy random objects you collected to build a tower! So here is the challenge:

Build the tallest tower, using as many objects as you can, that will withstand a hurricane

Try out different combinations and write down the measurements of the tower and the number of objects you used, then use your wind making devices to create some wind! See how well the tower does.

STEM guide

Children will learn through exploration on their own but there are ways you can guide the learning, directing their attention to certain aspects of the activity. For this STEM challenge, you could help them learn some basic building principles by asking questions as they explore and experiment with the different objects.

Example questions about stability:

What objects are better to use at the bottom or in other words; will make a good foundation?
Are they flat or have different shapes?
What objects are better to use at the top?
Are they heavier or lighter than the rest?
What size are they?

Example questions about materials:

What materials are better for the bottom? Top?
Which materials are difficult to use? Why?
Is it because of their shape? Are they too soft? Too hard?

Example questions about balance and support:

Can a same object be used in different positions?
What positions are best?
Where should you use light objects? heavy?

Follow-up Activities

Once they have experimented with building a tower of random things you can do some small follow-up activities. Here are some suggestions but feel free to change/adapt or invent some new ones:

Choose 5 objects and make a tower with the heaviest object on top
Choose 5 objects and make a tower with the biggest object on top
What 3 objects will make the most stable tower? You can then test stability by slowly rolling a ball towards the tower to see if it stays standing.
What 3 objects will make the tallest tower? Measure the tower with a ruler and write down different combinations of objects to determine which 3 objects create the tallest tower.
Outdoor activities: Build a tower that will withstand an earthquake or flood using as many objects as possible. How many objects did you use? Recreate an earthquake by stomping around the tower or a flood by filling a bucket up with water and letting the water flow towards the tower. When doing the flood part make sure you are using objects that you don’t mind getting wet.

That’s it! It is a simple open-ended activity with many questions and many solutions which is perfect for inquisitive STEM minds! Let your children learn as they explore and let me know in the comments if you were able to complete the STEM challenge and what random objects you used.

For more information about STEM and how to transform your STEM activities at home, check out these posts:

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

Happy STEM learning!

STEM Project: Engineer a House out of Natural Materials

Do you like having outdoor projects? I love getting my hands dirty and working in the garden or spending time outside trying to build things. And I’m sure your kids love it too! The fresh air, the feeling you are doing something productive and having fun at the same time. The beauty of the outdoors is you can even get sidetracked and explore something else because there is so much out there that is pulling on your senses. This STEM project will get you out and about and will challenge your engineering spirit.

So today I wanted to bring you a fun outdoor STEM project, building a house out of natural materials. It is a guided STEM project that follows engineering design principles and explores natural materials and construction. It is an open-ended activity that lets your child think and design, plan, explore outside, build and most importantly have fun while learning.

My experience as an engineer taught me that every project is different and requires different solutions. Getting into the habit of questioning things and reflecting on how things work is key in STEM. And this is what I wanted to offer with this activity, a chance for you and your children to explore and question in order to solve something using engineering principles.

Some Background Information

This guided activity is designed to introduce or reinforce the STEM project method that engineers follow whenever designing a product. The general steps followed are:

Identify a problem
Gather information
Design a solution
Plan the project
Build the product
Evaluate and test the result
Improve

We are going to use this method to build a house out of natural materials.

You can use this free printable to guide the activity and to write all your discoveries down.

So let’s get started!

STEM Project: Let’s make a Nature House using Engineering Principles!

Identify a Problem

We want to give your child a reason they are building a house. It could be for fairies, birds, mice or any little animal. They might need a house because winter is coming or they need a bigger house because they now have babies. Choose something that you know your child will find interesting and motivating. You can also just Google nature houses and show them the images and say you’d love to build one but dont really know how to do it and if they could help you.

Gather Information

Ok so before we go out we need a plan! And to be able to plan we need to have information about the house we are going to build. Time to brainstorm:

What type of house are we building? How big should it be? What shape does it have?
Does it have windows and doors?
What weather does it have to withstand? Hot? Cold? Rain? Snow?
Does it need protection? A fence?
What materials can we find nature? Wood? Mud? Leaves?
What characteristics do these materials have? Resistant? Heavy? Waterproof? Fireresistant?

In the printable you will find a list of materials and characteristics to help you find inspiration.

Design a Solution

So we had our brains working and we have an understanding of what is out there and what we want. Next step is to design! Draw a sketch of what you want the house to look like. With the sketch it is time to discuss the design.

What characteristics should the walls/roof have?
What materials can we use for the walls, roof and any other element your house has?
How many of those materials do you think we need? (When answering this question we can make a list of materials which is something extremely important in any enginnering process)
What tools are we going to need to put everything together?

Plan the STEM Project

By now we should have a list of materials, a list of tools and a rough sketch of what our house will look like. Time to craft a plan of action! Questions you can ask and things to take into account:

What is the first thing we should do?
In what order should we do these tasks: build, collect materials, test our design, collect tools
Should we collect the exact number of materials we said? More?
If we find something we didn’t think of what should we do?
What should we take when we go collect our materials?

Build the Nature House

The moment of truth has arrived! Up until now, your project was all theoretical and now it is time to put all that thinking into action! Here are some tips for building the house (you might not need them).

Lay all your materials out and categorize them according to the function they are going to serve and what element they are going to be
If you can, build your house on something you will be able to pick up and move, like a tray or a big cardboard in case you need to move it before it’s finished
Start with the walls, they are the foundation of your house

Here are some fun houses projects that can inspire you:

Evaluate the Result and Improve

Once you have finished it is always good to reflect on the project. It helps your children think about alternatives and what can be done better. Some questions to ask:

Does your house solve the problem? How?
If it doesn’t, what needs to be changed?
Does it solve a different problem or could you use it for something else?
What would you have done differently?
What went better/worse than expected?

As you can see this project is full of questions and this is something engineers face on an everyday basis. This is good practice for your children to think about their surroundings and how different materials can solve problems. It also shows them the importance of design and planning before taking on any project.

This type of method is so important in STEM activities and projects. However, it is also useful for anyone who has to tackle a project. If you need to write a paper for school you don’t just sit down and write, if you plan before, the writing will go much smoother. I myself use this method before writing a post! So this is why it is important to learn this method and what better way than through a hands-on approach!

I hope you enjoy and have fun with this activity and create some wonderful nature houses!

For more information about STEM and how to transform your STEM activities at home, check out these posts:

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

Happy STEM learning!