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

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:

Turn the egg cartons around and paint each row
Once the paint has dried, poke a hole in each colored circle
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

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

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.

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:

Check Out Parenting Tips And Inspiration For STEM At Home:

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:

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.

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.

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:

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).

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:

Happy STEM learning!

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

Hands-on And Sensory Learning Activities

Rainbow Activities

And favorite parenting topics:

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!

Christmas Indoor Game

Materials

Preparation

Christmas Indoor Game Set up

How To Play The Christmas Indoor Game

Mode 1: Follow the code and connect the wires

Mode 2: Design and replicate

STEM learning

More Fun Family Games:

Check Out Parenting Tips And Inspiration For STEM At Home:

What is play?

Child-led and unstructured

Enjoyable and make-believe

Open-ended or process-oriented

The Learning Through Play Spiral

Inspirational quotes about learning through play

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

Further reading to understand how children learn through play

Easy STEM Nature Box Activity

Preparation

STEM Nature Box

Materials

Sneak in some STEM:

More Fun Activities and Games:

Connect as a family from home

Here is a list of our favorite activities:

Play-Based Learning Activities

Hands-on And Sensory Learning Activities

Rainbow Activities

And favorite parenting topics:

Some Background Information

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

Identify a Problem

Gather Information

Design a Solution

Plan the STEM Project

Build the Nature House

Evaluate the Result and Improve