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Tag Archives: Nail string art

String Rainbow Art Project: Explore Shapes With String

String art is such a great way to practice fine motor skills and sneak in some math skills. It is also a lovely project that involves creativity and can keep your kids entertained creating something beautiful. Using rainbow colored yarn/string gives it that extra touch of color! But unfortunately we did not have this at home which gave us the perfect chance to expand the project and practice some DIY and color mixing! Replacing materials with stuff you have at home is a great practice for resourcefulness and modeling this for your kids is a great way to teach them to work with the resources they have. So in this post I will explain how we prepared some rainbow colored string and will then describe the string art project itself.

Rainbow String Preparation

We didn’t have any rainbow colored yarn or string at home, but we did have food coloring so I thought we could try and color some string with it. The results were not exactly the same as the store-bought one but it added a new layer to the project and it was also fun to do!

Materials

  • Food coloring
  • Plastic cups or containers
  • Water
  • String or yarn

Coloring String

Prepare the cups with water and food coloring. We poured about 2-3 fingers of water into the cups and squirted some food coloring into it until we got a color we liked. Perfect time to practice color mixing! We ended up with seven cups: blue, purple, green, red, orange, yellow and black. Next we added the string to the cups, we kept the string connected and just used each color once. You could probably go back and forth, feel free to experiment! Then leave the string to soak up the colorful water. In our case we left it a couple of days, our string took a very long time to soak up the water, but we kept checking it once in a while. This is how the preparation and what the end result looked like:

Once the string was out and drying we used the colored water to play a bit, stretching this project out even more! We combined colors and poured them into different containers which is quite entertaining for toddlers. Once the rainbow string is dry you can start the string art project! 

String Rainbow Art Project

Materials

  • Some sort of base: wood, corkboard…
  • Nails, toothpicks (make one side blunt if they are both pointy!), or straight pins
  • Rainbow string or yarn
  • Hammer if you use nails and wood

String Art Project

**Younger children should be supervised around pins, toothpicks, and nails, which have sharp points and are choking hazards.**

The first step in this project is to create a grid. Grab your base and place the nails/toothpicks/pins to make a grid. If you are using a corkboard you might want to double it up if it is too thin. We actually used an old corkboard that we didn’t want to cut up and just placed it over open boxes to give the toothpicks space to go through. Find what works for you.

For the grid, depending on your child’s age you could let them measure and mark the grid points themselves or mark them beforehand. Have your kids place one nail/toothpick/pin on each grid point. Use a smaller grid for younger kids and increase the size for older kids. My daughter enjoyed placing the toothpicks more than playing with the string!

string art math

Once the grid is set up, allow some free play. Explain to your kids how to weave the string and give them some time to experiment weaving the string and see what happens. You might need to help toddlers and guide the string with them a bit. It is the perfect time to talk about shapes that appear as they play with the string. This is definitely enough for toddlers. They practice their motor skills and you can talk about the shapes they create as they experiment. 

Sneak In Some Math

For older kids, you can try to sneak in some geometry. Start off by asking your kids to create as many different shapes as possible. Then you can challenge their mind a bit! Here are some suggestions:

  • On a 3×3 grid, how many (same size) triangles can you fit into a square? What about a 4×4 grid?
  • On a 4×4 grid, how many (same size) rectangles can you fit into a square? 
  • Divide a shape up into smaller shapes (check out the photo below) and then ask your kid how many squares/triangles/rectangles they see. Ask them to do the same for you.
string art math

Playing around with shapes like this is great to give kids a feeling for geometry and even fractions! 

Time For Creativity

Once your kids have played around with the string and explored the world of shapes, you can ask them to create their own design if they are still interested. To do so, draw the grid on paper first and ask them to draw something (a heart, a star…). To replicate the design with string use nails/toothpicks/pins to create the outline of your design. Then weave the string through them. Experiment with different designs and create some beautiful string art!

string art math

Hope you can spend some quality time together as a family discovering string art and exploring shapes!

More Fun Activities and Games:

  • Water Use Experiment: Teach Kids About Saving Water
  • Movement and 5 Senses Scavenger Hunt
  • Stay At Home Discover: Fun Ways To Use Straws
  • Stay At Home Math: Fun Games For Movement And Learning
  • STEM Game: The Sound and Feel of Materials
  • DIY Math Game with Playdough
  • STEM challenge: The Tower of Random Things
  • Sensory STEM jello experiment 

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.

Happy STEM learning!

string art math
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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
Salt dough FOOTPRINTS 🐾 I prepared some footpr Salt dough FOOTPRINTS 🐾
I prepared some footprints out of salt dough and hid them in the forest for the kids to find. The older kids (5 and 6) like scavenger hunts and being on a mission so I even prepared a map and marked the spots where they could find the footprints. 
I didn't tell them what they were looking for so there was a lot of excitement each time they found one, and a lot of conversation about what it could be. There was also teamwork, the older ones found the spot and allowed the younger ones to find the footprint. 
Once they had gathered them all, and had realized what they were, I brought out the animal cards and asked them if they could match them. There was problem solving and discussions, they looked at the different feet/paws and tried to imagine what kind of print they would leave.
To wrap up the activity, I offered them the chance to make their own mud print or follow their own interests. There was a choice, most kids played in the mud with no plan in mind and some made a print and then went off to find something else to do. 
And then all of a sudden, there was stillness. Each child absorbed in their own play. Focused, connected, happy. And I stayed still too, not daring to disturb the magic of free play 💚🐾🌿
The power of reflection 🌿✨ Being able to tak The power of reflection 🌿✨
Being able to take time to reflect on any situation is so important and such a valuable skill for kids to learn.
It is through reflection that we can truly understand what happens around us and how things work. Questions like what went well? Or what went wrong? And deepening these with why? Or what could we have done better? What would happen if we change something? They all lead to discovery and critical thinking. 
And this reflective process keeps us learning about the world around us and about ourselves. It drives us to want to know more, to deepen our knowledge, to try out new things. 
Reflection should be a key component of any learning environment. And it is a lovely way to bring closing to the experience. I've been holding my own Forest School sessions and a lot goes on in them but one of my favorite parts is the reflection at the end.
The children's wonder, attention to detail, curiosity and way of looking at the world will never cease to amaze me. We first find a special spot in nature and take a moment to ourselves, to think, observe, feel and reflect. Then we come together and share (if we want to and without judgement). We start simple, maybe something we liked, and we build on it (I bring in a bit of what I observe throughout the session) and most of the time the conversation will go towards what we learned.
And this is where connections are built, the learning from their hands-on experience is deepened by this simple reflective process and this reflection becomes a practice and this practice is a key driver of life-long learning and critical thinking ✨🌱
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!
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