Beautiful Hands-on Activities For Preschoolers: STEM Nature Eggs

A simple project which includes some hands-on activities with a lot of learning potential. This project is great for preschoolers but can be done with younger or older kids. It will get you and your little ones exploring nature, working on motor skills and developing scientific vocabulary through observation and play. I love that it is such a simple project but at the same time involves different hands-on activities that can be done together as a family and that offer teachable moments. I would recommend doing the project over the weekend when you have time for all the different steps and can truly engage in a way that is beneficial for your kids.

Why Use Hands-On Activities For Preschoolers?

Hands-on activities are a great way to get your kids motivated and engaged. By allowing our kids to use their hands, the learning experience moves away from abstract concepts toward something that they can relate to. This creates the perfect environment to boost learning! It is especially important for preschoolers to engage in hands-on learning as they develop vocabulary. Even more so when dealing with scientific concepts such as melting or freezing. It is very difficult to understand these concepts if they cannot experience it with their own senses. By giving them the chance to engage in fun hands-on activities you are creating the perfect environment to nurture their curiosity and sneak in some STEM.

STEM Nature Egg Project

The project is very simple and involves a number of hands-on activities for preschoolers that you can all do together. Enjoy the process and don’t try to rush to the final product. Give you and your kids time to explore. Here are the materials you will need and the steps with some tips and suggestions to sneak in STEM skills and learning opportunities.

Materials

Empty egg shells (we used 6)
Egg carton
Natural materials
Water
Containers for water

Project And Hands-On Activities For Preschoolers Or Older Kids

1. Prepare the eggshells

Preparation is a very important part of any project. In this case, we need to empty the egg shells before we can fill them up again. The night before you intend to do this project make sure to use those eggs for dinner! Scrambled eggs or an omelette are always a fast and easy meal at our home. Get your kids to help, involve them in the process.

The egg needs to be cracked open at the top, we used a spoon to bang the top of the eggshell. Empty the eggshell, rinse them and place them back in the egg carton. Make sure to peel enough shell away so that it can later be easily filled with all the lovely things you will collect.

2. Have a nature walk to collect materials

I love involving nature in any activity we do. It is so important and beneficial to take time out of our busy lives and just be in nature so go ahead and take a nature walk to gather materials. It can be in your garden, around your neighbourhood or even drive somewhere and make a small trip out of it. Take your time to talk about colors, plants, the different textures or sounds in nature. You can make a game out of it by asking your kids to find certain materials. Preschoolers love searching for things, for example:

Can you find something red?
Can you find something soft?

3. Fill the eggshells with natural materials and water

Bring the egg carton out with all the empty eggshells. Have your kids fill them with the natural materials you collected. At this point you can just let them do their thing or you can guide the activity a bit and sneak in some STEM skills. For example, have them sort the different materials using different senses and see what happens:

Use your eyes to sort by color or type of flower
Try using your nose to sort by smell
Use your hands to sort by touch (soft/rough)

Once all the eggshells are full have your kids pour some water into them and place the egg carton with your nature eggs in the freezer. Time to ask some questions and explore concepts:

What do you think will happen?
Explore the different concepts of liquid/solid, freeze/melt, cold/hot, water/ice and develop their vocabulary. This can be done by just talking about the subjects
If you are doing this with older kids you can make a before and after chart with this vocabulary

4. Prepare a hands-on exploration station

Once the water has frozen, set up a space for exploration and play. Have a bowl of warm water to help peel the eggs (we found that it was difficult to peel the eggs right out of the freezer so we used warm water to melt the ice a bit and make it easier to peel the eggs). Let them explore and make observations. Ask questions and use these observations to explain concepts if you wish. For example:

What happens when you put the frozen nature eggs in the water?
Can you see anything happening to the ice?
What happens to the natural materials?
What happens to the temperature of the bowl of water?

My 3-year-old daughter observed that the ice floated and got smaller! Great scientific observation and great invitation to talk about what is happening, why the ice was getting smaller. Keep playing and exploring as long as your kids are happy and entertained. My kid went on to prepare flower soup for everyone, she put all the frozen nature eggs in the bowl, added water and mixed it all until the ice disappeared and only the natural materials were left. It was pretty cool! So just play and experiment with what you have at hand and have fun with your kids.

To finish off I will leave you with a summary of STEM concepts that you can use throughout these hands-on activities for preschoolers.

STEM Concepts and Skills:

Collecting, sorting, categorizing and observing
States of matter: liquid/solid water/ice
Change of state: freeze/melt
Temperature: hot/cold
Float/sink
Problem solving: how can you get the flowers out of the ice?

Thinking and reflecting on why things happen: a lot happens in this simple hands-on project and it is simple enough for children to start observing and making conclusions by themselves so keep asking open-ended questions that start with why do you think…? Or what do you see…? Or what happens…? and watch how their little brains work.

Hope to have inspired some hands-on fun you can do with your preschooler.

More Fun Activities and Games:

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!