Source: modernhomesteadmama.com
What kid doesn’t love cookies? And oreos make for the perfect little moon replicas. Get a free downloadable phases of the moon worksheet here, and help your kids learn the phases of the moon during snack time.
Beforehand, get kids to study the names and corresponding phases of the moon (at NASA’s Space Place website, for example), and then recreate them from memory with oreo cookies and this handy free downloadable worksheet.
Source: hisawyer.com
Do yourself a favour: Go on YouTube and look up “Rube Goldberg machine.” You and your child will be treated to videos of hilariously complicated machines built to take care of simple tasks.
Who exactly was Rube Goldberg? He was an American cartoonist who rose to prominence in the first half of the 20th century. Although he was trained and worked as an engineer for a few years, he didn’t actually build the machines for which he became famous – instead, he drew them.
If you want to try making one yourself, you can break down the process of building a simple Rube Goldberg machine into three general steps:
1. Pick a task
What will your Rube Goldberg machine do? Think about small actions you perform every day in your home. Flipping a light switch, shutting a door, dropping something into the trash or recycling, watering a plant—the possibilities are endless.
2. Gather supplies
You can use anything you’ve got lying around the house in your Rube Goldberg machine. That said, there are a few staples you’ll see in most such contraptions: dominoes (or objects that can act as dominoes, like cereal boxes and batteries), marbles (or other things that roll, like balls, cans, and toy cars), string, funnels and chutes (like paper towel and toilet paper tubes), and containers (like cups, bowls, and buckets). You can also experiment with more complicated components like water and magnets.
3. Build part by part
Take the design (sketching your ideas beforehand can be helpful) and construction of your machine piece by piece. Most Rube Goldberg machines are basically a series of unrelated devices that trigger each other one by one, so it makes sense to build in chunks.
Learn more about Rube Goldberg machines and get some building tips.
Source: parents.com
This fun and fun-to-build brushbot moves on its own. Just don’t expect it to clean the floors!
Materials
Directions
Spark Creative Learning!
This STEAM activity for kids creates a simple circuit, a closed path that an electrical current travels through. The battery provides the electricity, and the wires conduct it to the motor. When the motor’s shaft spins, the washer throws it off-balance, making the whole motor – and the brush along with it – vibrate and move.
Source: leftbraincraftbrain.com
What better way to learn about science than by eating it? Especially if it’s delicious. With this bread-in-a-bag project, kids can learn why bread rises and feel the pride of making homemade bread the whole family will want to eat! You can also do some experimenting to learn more about yeast before you get baking. See the yeast in action by proofing a packet of active dry yeast in warm water! Then, take your knowledge a step further by baking bread and sampling the results. Learn more.
Source: the-gingerbread-house.co.uk
Here’s a heart-shaped tangram inspired by the well-known Chinese puzzles. Turn it into a card for Valentine’s Day!
Materials
Directions
Spark Creative Learning!
A tangram is a two-dimensional puzzle of Chinese origin, created by cutting a square into seven pieces. The puzzle consists of one parallelogram, one square, and five different sized triangles. The goal of tangram puzzling is to reproduce various shapes that use all of the pieces with every piece touching and none overlapping. Learn more about tangrams.
Source: kaplanco.com
This DIY robot hand is a simple and inventive engineering activity that will teach children all about the world of robotics! With just three common items – straws, paper, and string – kids can create a moving, bendable hand. This activity encourages exploration of robotics, engineering, and creative thinking.
Materials
Directions
Source: nationalgeographic.co.uk
Kids won’t need beakers and microscopes for these four biology experiments – they just need themselves! Each of these experiments from National Geographic’s UK website lets children discover how a human body system works. And by doing these “tests” on their own bodies, they’ll get to see and feel exactly how their own systems function. Learn more and start experimenting.
Source: mamapapabubba.com
This play dough subtraction smash activity is a fun visual and tactile way for little kids to start learning subtraction!
Materials
Directions
Source: steampoweredfamily.com
This bath bomb activity is meant to capture the sparkle of freshly-fallen winter snow. With this activity, kids can also study icicles and the way they look and reflect the light and see if they can think of ways to capture that feeling in the design of their bath bombs.
Materials
Directions
Using Your Icicle Bath Bombs
To use, simply fill your bath with warm water and plop the bath bomb in! Enjoy the fizzy bath bomb fun! Bath bombs are best used within a couple of weeks. Overtime the strength of the reaction will diminish.
Bath bombs must stay dry until you are ready to use them. They can be wrapped in plastic or placed in an airtight container.
Spark Creative Learning!
Bath bombs are an acid-base chemical reaction. In this recipe we have baking soda as our base and citric acid and cream of tartar as our acids. Cornstarch is a fantastic filler that helps keep our acid and base ingredients dry. This is important, because as any young scientist will tell you, when acids and bases come together, they react, but not when they are in a dry solid state like our bath bombs. To trigger the chemical reaction we need water to make the magic happen.
Another ingredient you may not recognize from the list is polysorbate 80. This is an emulsifier that helps oils mix with water. This is very important in bath bombs, where you want the ingredients to mix in with the bathwater and not float on the top like a layer of scum and stick to the sides of the bathtub. Plus, the science of emulsifiers is pretty cool – finding a way to make fat and water mix is fascinating for young scientists.
Source: playgroundparkbench.com
During the holidays, try using peppermints and candy canes as math manipulatives in your family’s projects!
Since birth, children are measured and weighed at every doctor visit. From an early age, they quickly hop on the scale or ask how tall they are. But what does that number mean? And how are different things measured? Typical units of measurement can be a bit abstract for preschool mathematicians, but you can still introduce and explore the concept of measurement with them using more familiar, tangible units. For the holidays, you can explore measurements with candies, using peppermints for weight and candy canes for length.
Weighing Objects with a Balance Scale
If you don’t have a balance scale, you can make a simple DIY balance scale with cups, string, and a coat hanger. Place your scale on a level surface or hang your DIY version from the back of a chair or a hook, and let your preschooler weigh various objects. Instruct them to place an object in one cup, and add weights – in this case peppermints – to the other cup until the scale balances. How many ‘peppermints’ did each of your objects weigh? Which object was the heaviest? Which one was the lightest? Did any objects weigh the same?
Measuring Lengths with Candy Canes
You can also move on to measuring lengths. Using candy canes like rulers, preschoolers can measure countless objects around the room. Demonstrate how to lay the candy cane along the length of the object starting at one end. Lay candy canes end to end to measure the full length of each object. What was the tallest object you measured? What was the smallest?
For Older Kids
Older students can still enjoy these basic measurement activities. You can make it more of a challenge for them by asking them to convert their weights and lengths from units of peppermints and candy canes to actual grams and centimetres!
