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Tag Archives: What to do with plastic straws

Great Engaging Activity: Fun Ways To Use Straws

Questioning and thinking outside of the box are such important skills, not only for STEM, but for life in general. By exposing your children to experiences that require them to look at things differently you are helping them to develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills. In the Stay At Home Discover series I will be giving you tips and ideas for using everyday objects in fun and engaging ways. Invite your children to discover ways to use these objects and have fun experimenting.

stay at home STEM straws

In the last week we have been finding new and exciting ways to use straws! From using them as building materials to blowing bubbles every time is a great chance to sneak in some STEM learning. In this case, I refer to STEM learning as sharpening those problem-solving and critical thinking skills and not necessarily the Science Technology Engineering and Math aspect. 

How can you guide the learning? 

I will be giving you some ideas of what we have been doing with straws but feel free to explore and come up with your own ideas. Depending on your kids age you can then collect the materials from each activity and invite them to find ways to use or play with them. Or you could just gather some straws and without any guidance let them collect things around the house that they could use to create or play in any way they want.

Activities we have been doing

Bear in mind that our daughter is almost 3 years-old so if you have older/younger kids you might need to adapt the activities. 

Bring straws to bathtime! 

This was so fun! We started by just blowing air through the straw into the bath water and to her surprise bubbles started coming out! Our daughter also tried drinking the bath water and spit it back out so be prepared for this. Then we started making soap bubbles with the straw. For this we got some toy cups, put some soap and water in it and just blew with the straw. We were amazed to see how the bubbles came out!  We experimented by blowing fast, blowing slow and watching how the bubbles changed. It was so fun we did it a few days later outside!

stay at home STEM straws

Preparation

For this activity you will need:

  • Straws
  • Small plastic cups
  • Soap 
  • Water

How to sneak in some critical thinking:

  • Invitation to create: Lay out the materials and ask them what you could do with them
  • Once you are set up blowing bubbles you can ask:
    • What will happen if we blow faster/slower?
    • What happens to the water when we blow bubbles?

Use straws for moving things around

Feed the bunny

I had some colorful pom poms lying around from when I did activities with kids on the weekends so I brought these out to use with the straws. If you don’t have pom poms you could use ping pong balls or cotton balls or even try making some balls out of cello tape and paper. We also had a bunny rabbit made out of cardboard so we brought that out and tried to feed the bunny by blowing the pom poms into the bunny’s mouth. You can turn this into a game by seeing how much food you can get into the bunny’s mouth in X amount of time. (I’ll leave it up to you to decide on the time).

stay at home STEM straws

Get the ball through the maze

Another day we used our blocks to make a maze and tried getting the ball from one side to the other. This can be done as a race (you can time each person) or it can be done as a collaborative game. 

These games are great for older kids and younger kids just enjoy discovering what they can do with straws. As I write this I am thinking that it would also be fun to suck the air in through the straw and try to get the balls from one point to another. I’ll leave you with that thought and see what fun games you can come up with. 

Preparation

Materials you will need: 

  • Straws
  • Balls to push/carry around (pom poms, ping pong balls, cotton balls, paper balls…)
  • Containers to push the balls into or drop them into (fun animals made out of cardboard, plastic cups, tupperware…)
  • Materials to make a maze or a road: blocks, tin foil (have fun creating the road too!)

How to sneak in some problem-solving and critical thinking:

  • Invitation to create: Lay out the materials and ask your kids what you could do with them
  • If you have been blowing the balls around, change something in the game and ask them how they would get the balls around now. For example, if the container was horizontal so you could push the balls in put it in a position so that you have to suck the air in and carry the balls in or maybe use two straws to pick the balls up

Use straws for creating objects:

Bring out some straws, something that will connect them (we used scotch tape) and start creating! 

Ideas for things you can create:

  • 2D Shapes (this is what we did)
  • 3D Shapes
  • Bridges 
  • Towers
  • Houses
  • Ramps (slides for toys)
  • Any type of structure really
stay at home STEM straws

Preparation

Materials you will need:

  • Straws
  • Something to connect the straws (playdough, tape…)
  • Scissors (to adjust the size of the straws)

How to sneak in some problem-solving and critical thinking:

  • Invitation to create: Lay out the materials and ask your kids what you could do with them
  • Challenges: How can we make a bridge strong enough to hold a book? How can we make a tower as tall as…? How can we make 3D shapes out of the 2D ones we already made? Is it possible to make a slide for your toys?
  • If we just use 5/10… straws what can we create?

For the challenges you can also do some research online with your kids beforehand. This is a great way to get your kids motivated about the activity and you are teaching them to research before starting a project which is so important in STEM! For bridges for  example you can google “bridge” and look at the images and see which one you could create.


More Fun Activities and Games:

  • Movement and 5 Senses Scavenger Hunt
  • Stay At Home Math: Fun Games For Movement And Learning
  • STEM Game: The Sound and Feel of Materials
  • DIY Math Game with Playdough
  • STEM challenge: The Tower of Random Things
  • Sensory STEM jello experiment 

Make sure to Bookmark the Stay At Home STEM post which will be updated with all our fun STEM activities that are perfect for doing at home.

Have fun and discover new ways to use everyday objects!

So these are the ways in which we discovered straws and I hope you can find some fun and engaging ways too! Enjoy the time with your kids and reconnect with your family through play, exploration and discoveries! 

stay at home STEM straws
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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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