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Playful And Mindful STEM At Home And In Nature
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Tag Archives: Play based learning activities

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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Play-Based Learning: How Children Learn Through Play

In your search for fun activities to do at home with your kids you might have come across the concepts of play-based learning or learning through play. You may even understand that it has to do with your children learning while they play. It seems ideal, but you might be skeptical. How do children actually learn through play? Is there anything I need to take into account? Do I just let them play without any involvement? Here we will try to clarify some of these questions and offer an understanding of how you can engage with your kids through play. 

play based learning through play how do children learn through play

What is play? 

Let’s first clarify what play actually means. The general understanding of the term play is that it is child-led, open-ended, process-oriented (no end result in mind), unstructured, enjoyable, and make believe. According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC): “The impulse to play comes from a natural desire to understand the world”. Therefore, we can assume that if children are trying to understand the world, they are also learning about it. So let’s take a look at the elements involved in play to see how this might actually be happening:

Child-led and unstructured

Limited adult involvement means children have to figure stuff out by themselves. This can lead to many different scenarios involving productive struggle, trial and error, and repetition. All these scenarios drive learning. Also, children are naturally curious, and this curiosity drives their learning. It is important to clarify here that adults can obviously play with their children. But for it to remain child-led, the adult has to meet the child at eye-level. We should become play companions with our kids and not take over or try to direct toward a specific outcome.

Enjoyable and make-believe

We learn better when we associate positive feelings to the experience. Early childhood is all about having fun and following our imagination. This fuels our intrinsic motivation, which moves learning. 

Open-ended or process-oriented

If there is more than one answer, more than one way to do things, we need to get creative and use problem solving or critical thinking skills to reflect on what we are doing. In addition, there is no judgement or frustration if the end result is not achieved. When we don’t associate negative feelings with what we do, we tend to repeat. Both repetition and motivation are key elements for learning.

The Learning Through Play Spiral

So to make things even clearer we have created a learning through play spiral that will help clarify how this could be happening:

learning through play sprial how children learn through play

Why a spiral? Because learning is not a closed circle, it doesn’t stop and start. It builds on itself, like a spiral, which can keep going and going, as opposed to a circle that just goes around on itself. Bear in mind that this is a possible scenario and that it doesn’t always necessarily happen this way. We wanted to provide an illustration of how learning through play is possible. Remember that play is open-ended and learning is just one of the many outcomes. Also, sometimes play is just playful and fun, and that is ok too.

Inspirational quotes about learning through play

So now that you understand a bit more what it means to learn through play here are some wonderful inspirational quotes: 

“When a child is doing something she’s passionately interested in, she grows like a tree – in all directions. This is how children learn, how children grow. They send down a taproot like a tree in dry soil. The tree may be stunted, but it sends out these roots, and suddenly one of these little taproots goes down and strikes a source of water. And the whole tree grows.” John Holt

“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.” John Dewey

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a child who wasn’t motivated to figure things out, to find the answers to personally relevant questions. However, I’ve met (and taught) plenty of kids who aren’t motivated to sit quietly and listen to someone else talk or to memorize the definitions of a list of words. That lack of interest doesn’t suggest an absence of motivation (to be remedied with carrots and sticks) but a problem with the model of instruction or with the curriculum.” Alfie Kohn

“Self-directed learning does not mean no adult involvement. It means no adult force/control.” Carol Black

And how can we as parents support their learning through play? 

Now that you understand how children learn through play you might wonder how to encourage this at home. It’s simple. By offering an environment that fuels their natural curiosity. An environment that motivates them to discover the world at their own pace and rythym, in a fun way, and with a bit of a challenge. We can offer open-ended activities that have learning opportunities and that require little to no adult involvement. These types of activities are some of the ones we focus on here at a STEMful mind. Our activities usually have some adult involvement but the idea is that we as parents guide through observations but leave the exploring and experimenting up to our kids. So if you are up for it go ahead and check out some of our favorite activities:  

  • 5 Brilliant Ways To Experiment With Oobleck
  • Fantastic Outdoor Game With Great Learning Potential
  • Multisensory Learning: The Sound and Feel of Materials
  • Fun Color Experiment For Toddlers Who Love A Good Mess
  • STEM Challenge: The Tower of Random Things

Further reading to understand how children learn through play

If you are interested in the topic of play-based learning or learning through play here are some articles that will help you better understand what we talked about in this post: 

https://www.edutopia.org/article/neuroscience-behind-productive-struggle

https://www.naeyc.org/our-work/families/five-essentials-meaningful-play

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/16/09/intrinsically-motivated

https://www.pgpedia.com/o/open-ended-play

https://www.weareteachers.com/understanding-intrinsic-vs-extrinsic-motivation-in-the-classroom/

https://www.unicef.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/UNICEF-Lego-Foundation-Learning-through-Play.pdf

Happy and Playful STEM Learning!

how children learn through play quotes play based learning
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STEM Nature Box: Sort, Categorize, And Learn

We live in an apartment in the city but are lucky enough to have a terrace we fill with green! Our home is full of easy-to-care for plants and even random beans and lentils that sprout because our daughter plays with them outside. We make sure to bring nature into our life even when living in the city because it is so important for children (and us adults too). Tending to plants is a lovely way to connect with nature with your children. We water the plants together, deadhead them too (work on scissor skills), we even repot plants together, try to grow cuttings and plant lentils and beans. These last ones are great! They grow really fast and you can use them in nature activities like the one I will explain below. It is the perfect activity to learn about plants and to sneak in some STEM skills through play! So read on to find out how to create your own STEM Nature Box.

nature stem activity

Easy STEM Nature Box Activity

You can separate this activity into two so that you can have your kids happy and entertained twice! 

Preparation

If you live close to nature go for a nature walk and collect all sorts of plants and flowers. Pull some out with the roots if you can. If your kids are into it don’t limit it to gathering plants, include sticks, pinecones, stones… The activity will focus on plants but it can include other things too! 

If you live in the city and don’t have a chance to get to nature easily don’t worry! You will have to do some planting first, wait for it to grow, and then go ahead with the activity. Even if you have nature close by, gardening and planting seeds is great to do with children. You can use this later in the activity to remind them of how plants grow and they will love seeing that little green sprout coming out of the soil. So go ahead and plant beans or lentils as soon as you can so you can eventually do the activity. You won’t get any flowers but you will be able to pull the plant out and check the roots out!! 

STEM Nature Box

The idea behind this activity is that you are preparing food for animals in a STEM Nature box. You can stick to just plants in the box or you can add anything to it. We added lentils and oats and even shells that we had collected from the beach.

nature stem activity

Materials

  • Plants
  • Tray to put the plants before sorting them (optional)
  • Additional “food”: sticks, stones, dry food such as lentils or oats
  • Box (we used an old wine box but any shoe box will do)
  • Scissors
  • Animals, dolls or toys that will be “fed”

Once you have collected all the wonderful natural materials lay them all out on a tray and see if your kid is interested in preparing food for the animals. My daughter loves farm animals and feeding them so this was a perfect activity for her and it kept her entertained for a long time! At this point you can do two things:

  • Invite them to feed the animals and let them do it their own way
  • Guide the activity

It’s really up to you and kids really learn through playing and exploring. Check out The Do’s And Don’ts of Free Play: A STEM Perspective for more information. With my 3-year-old, I just let her organize and separate with minimal guidance. As she separated we talked about what she was doing and I showed her the different parts of the plants and that was enough. Having said this, if you want to guide the activity a bit more here are my suggestions:

stem nature box

Sneak in some STEM:

  • Get your kids to separate the different parts of the plants into leaves, stems, roots, flowers and make different piles in your box for different animals. By doing this your kids are practicing sorting, organizing and categorizing and learning the different parts of the plant. 
  • Have some nature talks: Remind them how you planted the beans/lentils and you watered them and they eventually grew into plants. You can ask them things like  “which part of the plant do you think was in charge of taking in the water?” “How long was the stem before the leaves started to grow?” 
  • Once you see the activity is coming to an end you can ask them again what they fed each animal (stems, leaves, flowers, roots?) 

By handling the plants with their hands, having planted them beforehand, you are giving your child the chance to really experience the world they live in. And by turning it into a game of “feeding the animals” they are learning through play. Talking and asking questions while they play, or once they are done will get them to reflect on how plants grow and will reinforce a way to look at things (by categories).

nature stem activity

We talked about the different parts of the plants. We observed how some leaves were brown and talked about why. She even referred to the roots later on and said “the doggie likes roots” and picked some out for the toy dog. Once the sorting was done, my daughter decided she wanted to put food in a bowl so she brought out some plastic containers and we made a soup together by adding water! Creating a wonderful messy and sensory experience!! Let them guide the playtime now and just enjoy and explore with them.

More Fun Activities and Games:

  • String Rainbow Art Project: Explore Shapes With String
  • 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 challenge: The Tower of Random Things
  • Sensory STEM jello experiment 

Happy STEM learning!

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Connect As A Family Through Play And Discovery

STEM activities are a great way to engage with your children. By discovering the world together you get the chance to strengthen the bond between you. Solving problems and connecting ideas open up a new and beautiful world. Young children have an incredible curious nature. Something that tends to be neglected as we grow up. Following your child’s motivation to understand their environment is a great way to reconnect to your own inner child and connect to your family. Not only are you doing things together, but you are also growing together, learning. You become scientific teammates ready to tackle the world’s problems. And by doing this, you are nurturing a love for learning that will pave the path for the rest of your children’s lives.

Connect as a family from home

And the best thing is, you can do this at home. In your backyard. Or when you go out for a walk. The activities we focus on here, at a STEMful mind, are low-prep and easy activities that can be integrated into your daily life. The more you do these types of activities, the more you will get inspired to do your own. We also encourage you to observe and play with your children at eye-level, to discover together. You will find ways to do this in all our activities. This will help you get to know your child better so that you can all connect as a family.

Create a home learning environment that fosters creativity and wonder. Let your child become your teacher. Listen to their stories, engage with them in their play. It all counts. It all connects.

So go ahead and scroll through our STEM activities or check out some Parenting For STEM articles to gain a deeper understanding of learning.    

Here is a list of our favorite activities:

Play-Based Learning Activities

  • Fantastic Outdoor Game With Great Learning Potential
  • Milk The Cow STEM Challenge: Can You Mimic Nature?
  • STEM Nature Box: Sort, Categorize, And Learn
  • Exciting Math Games For Movement And Learning
  • STEM Water Play: 8 Fun Activities to try this Summer

Hands-on And Sensory Learning Activities

  • String Rainbow Art Project: Explore Shapes With String
  • Math For Toddlers: Easy Sensory Bath Time Activity
  • Beautiful Hands-on Activities For Preschoolers: STEM Nature Eggs
  • Multisensory Learning: The Sound and Feel of Materials
  • Nature Puzzles: A Wonderful Way To Explore Shapes
  • Hands-on Engineering For Kids: How To Make A Wind Farm

Rainbow Activities

  • Fun Color Experiment For Toddlers Who Love A Good Mess
  • String Rainbow Art Project: Explore Shapes With String
  • Math For Toddlers: Easy Sensory Bath Time Activity
  • 5 Brilliant Ways To Experiment With Oobleck

And favorite parenting topics:

  • Play-Based Learning: How Children Learn Through Play
  • Have You Wondered With Your Kid Today?
  • The Do’s And Don’ts Of Free Play. A STEM Perspective
  • What is STEM and why is STEM Learning important?
  • Discover The Best Strategies For Learning That Sticks
connect as a family through STEM


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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.

STEM project Engineering Design Process

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:

  1. Identify a problem
  2. Gather information
  3. Design a solution
  4. Plan the project
  5. Build the product
  6. Evaluate and test the result
  7. Improve
STEM project Engineering Design Process

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:

  • 5 tips to transform STEM activities at home
  • What is STEM and why is STEM learning important?

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

  • STEM activity: Build a pyramid and learn about shapes
  • STEM experiment: Scientific method float or sink activity
  • STEM project: Engineer a house out of natural materials
  • STEM challenge: The Tower of Random Things
  • STEM water play: 8 fun activities to try this summer
  • STEM Road Trip Experiment

Happy STEM learning!

STEM project Engineering Design Process
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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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