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!

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!

STEM Experiment: Scientific Method Float or Sink Activity

Oh the scientific method! Such a structured way to exploration but so helpful when taking on a big scientific project. Scientists and researchers use this method when trying to answer questions about our world. Following the scientific method allows researchers to have a guide that helps them organize all the information. Because let’s face it, nowadays the information at our fingertips is so huge! With this STEM experiment, you can help your children get an understanding of using the scientific method in a fun and educational way.

**Check out our Simple Science Project For Kids: Float or Sink for a simple play-based version of the Float or Sink experiment! Perfect for younger kids or if you are looking for a less structured activity.**

Having a tool like the scientific method is very useful. And introducing it to your kids will help them with problem-solving and analytical skills. It will give them a way to structure their thoughts when problems arise. It also shows them to take their time to think about the problem and analyze different perspectives before choosing the best solutions.

Some Background Information

The scientific method is used by scientists to structure their research and make the process of discovering something more efficient and effective.

The steps to the scientific method are the following:

Question
Research
Hypothesis
Experiment
Analyze
Conclusion

As you can see, there are many steps before starting any experiment. By researching and writing down your hypothesis first you will be able to set up the perfect experiment to answer the question. You will also have some background knowledge that will help you when doing the experiment.

STEM Experiment: Let’s find out the Answer to…

The Question

So here is a question for your children:

Why do you think things float or sink?

They probably have some ideas and answers for this. Encourage them to write down their original thoughts so that you can compare them once you are done with the STEM experiment.

Here you can find a free printable to fill out as the experiment goes on.

Time to Research

Research is usually done by reading and reading and more reading of scientific papers, journals and relevant material. We are not going to do this 🙂 We will move the research along by asking our kids some questions. So let’s get your kids brain to work a bit:

Think of objects that float/don’t float, what are they made of? How big are they?
Do you float in water? Can you make yourself float more or less? (By filling your lungs with air and holding your breath you will float more)
Show them a list of materials, do you think materials matter?
Show them different sized objects or images of objects, do you think size matters?
What other things do you think affect the ability of an object to float or sink?

Write down a Hypothesis you want to test

Now that you have brainstormed about why an object floats or not you can make a hypothesis or more than one! But first, what is a hypothesis?

A hypothesis is an idea or explanation for something that needs to be proved
A hypothesis tries to answer the question of your research (in this case, why do things float or sink?)
A hypothesis is proved through experiments and testing

Some ways you can express your hypothesis:

Things made out of _______ float/sink
Things that are ___________ float/sink
Floating depends on ______________

Time to test those Hypotheses

Once you’ve made a hypothesis, ask your child how you could test it. Here are a few examples of experiments you could do with them but feel free to come up with your own!

First step in any experiment is to gather the materials you are going to test and any tools you might need. For any experiment you are going to need:

Objects to test (different sizes, materials and shape)
Water, in a bucket, in the sink, in the bathtub, in a small outdoor pool
Paper and pencil to write down your findings

Ways you can experiment and make your children think about the hypotheses:

Categorize the objects you have collected and test their floating ability by pairs:

○ same material, different size

○ same material, different shape

○ same size, different weight

Get plastic containers and fill them with different materials and test the floating capabilities, for example:

○ empty container

○ container filled with cotton (what happens when cotton gets wet?)

○ container filled with sand

○ container filled with water

○ container filled with sticks

○ container filled with coins

○ container filled with stones

Do the same with a glass container

There is a list of materials and object ideas in the guide for inspiration. Let them experiment and play 🙂 there is no rush to finish the activity! Don’t forget to write down your findings so you can analyze them later!

Let’s analyze those Resultats

Now it’s time to look back on your STEM experiment and the results to see if your hypothesis was correct. You can ask the hypothesis back in question form and see if the results support it! Other questions you can ask to discover why certain objects float:

Does wood/plastic/metal/stone float?
Does shape or weight matter?
What containers could float? Which ones would sink? What was inside of them?

Conclusion Time

So did you find out why things float? Did you test your hypothesis? Did you get some fun ideas about other things you could test with this method? Did more questions pop up as you experimented? Welcome to the STEM world! The questions never end 🙂 and this is oh so important for your children to experience. How to answer questions using the scientific method is a must in the STEM world. If you want a more detailed answer to why things float you can download the printable guide, there is an explanation at the end. But I’m sure that you will have a pretty good idea about the answer from all that scientific experimenting you will do 😉

So to finish up the activity you can talk about what you discovered and if there are more things you would like to research together. If you have any topics you would like me to cover just comment below and I’d be happy to write a post about it in the future. I hope you enjoyed this activity and had fun experimenting and discovering how our world works.

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 Activity: Build a Pyramid and Learn about Shapes

I recently made a pyramid in one of my workshops for kids and it was an absolute blast! The kids loved decorating the different parts and figuring out how to put everything together. I realized that it was such a great STEM activity to explore shapes and work on spatial awareness.

STEM activity pyramid shapes spatial awareness

It was also so much fun that I wanted to share it with you and give you a way to create teachable STEM moments at home. I will first give you the process of creating the pyramid and then provide you with an example of how you could introduce the STEM activity and guide it so that some STEM learning happens!

STEM Activity: How to Build a Pyramid

Building a pyramid is quite simple and you probably have all the materials you need at home!

Tools and Materials

Materials you will need:

Cardboard – we used an old cardboard box from a recent package I received from an online purchase, I’m sure you have some of those lying around 😉
Decoration materials – we stencilled some hieroglyphics on, but you can just decorate however you want. Paint, glitter, stickers, glue some colorful cutout papers, the options are endless

Tools you will need:

Scissors to cut the shapes
Tape to hold the pyramid together – we used painters tape because it is what I had lying around but you can use duct tape too. Regular cello tape might not hold the pyramid together so well but you can definitely try! The 3-year-olds enjoyed the tape moment and our pyramid ended up covered in pieces of tape too!
Ruler to measure
Pencil

That’s it! Pretty simple right?

The Preparation

To build a pyramid you are going to basically need a square base and 4 triangles. Here is an image so it’s clearer:

I have provided the measurements we used but if you want to do your own, smaller or bigger here are the instructions:

First figure out how wide and how tall you want your pyramid
The width will be the measurement of your square base. Draw a square with this measurement
For the triangles, the base will be the width of the pyramid and the height will be the one you chose. Draw the base first and then mark the middle point. From that point, draw a straight perpendicular line (forming a T) measuring the height of your pyramid. Connect the edges to make your triangle. Repeat 4 times

Decorating and putting everything together

We decorated the individual shapes before putting it together. It is easier to do it flat on the ground and it gave it that extra wow factor once you build it but you can do it whenever you want.

To put the pyramid together, lie it flat on the ground and create this shape (decorated-side down):

Tape the edges of the square and the base of the triangles together. You can also add some paper to make a sturdier connection.

Now bring all the sides up and have someone hold the triangles together at the top while the other person tapes the sides together. And your pyramid is done! You can keep decorating it or put on some music and dance around it!

STEM Learning Guide

This is a great STEM activity if you are working on 3D figures and/or shapes. By drawing their attention to the shapes in the process of creating something.

Introducing the STEM Activity

First, you need to get your children interested and motivated about building a pyramid. Some kids might be excited just by the idea of building it but others might need some input beforehand. What you could do:

Show them photos or videos of pyramids and ask if they think you could build one together
Show them a cardboard box and a photo of a pyramid and ask them if they think you could transform the box into a pyramid together

Once they are excited and convinced they can build one you could ask some prep questions. Here are a few suggestions:

What shapes do you see in a pyramid? (For this it could be interesting to have a small prototype of the pyramid already made so they can look at it and touch it with their hands)
What tools do you think we need?
What materials could we use to build the pyramid?
Where should we start?

During the STEM Activity

Depending on how old your children are you can increase difficulty in the shape drawing part. Things you could do:

Draw a T and ask them how they would connect the edges to draw a triangle
Draw two parallel lines and ask them how they would connect edges to draw a square
Make just one line and ask them to draw the rest of the square (all sides should be the same)
Draw the base of the triangle and ask them to draw a triangle that has a specific height

Once all shapes are drawn, cut out and decorated you can ask them to arrange the pieces to construct the pyramid. Again, depending on age you could increase difficulty. Options:

Show them the figure it should form and they have to copy it
If you made a prototype, let them look at it and figure out how to arrange the pieces themselves. They could even deconstruct the prototype to see how to build it back up

Some follow up Questions for Spatial Awareness and to get their Brains going

If the base were a rectangle/triangle, what would we need to change?
What could we build with just squares?
Why is the pyramid shorter than the height of the triangle sides?

Bonus fun

To add some extra fun and cultural knowledge you could ask them what they think pyramids were used for and find out together. Bury some treasures inside before putting the pyramid together and seal it up for posterity! A follow up activity could be… how can we get our treasures back?!

Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if you hid any treasures in a pyramid lately or if you have any questions.

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!