stem activities Archives - Teacher's Brain

The Top 3 Benefits of STEM Activities in Elementary

November 3, 2023 teachersbrain Science, STEM, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Wondering about the benefits of STEM activities in elementary? You’re in the right place! If you know me, you know I love STEM activities and it’s so fun to see our young students light up when they are wrapped up and fully engaged in STEM learning.

What is STEM and why is it important?

STEM is essentially an integrated approach to learning that incorporates four key disciplines: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. These subjects are at the heart of many of the world’s most pressing challenges and exciting opportunities, so it’s important that we get our kiddos comfortable with it from an early age.

Here are some of the top benefits of STEM activities:

STEM Activities Foster Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving

STEM challenges are like brain-boosting exercises for our young learners. They help our students flex their thinking muscles by encouraging them to ask questions, explore solutions, and adapt their strategies when faced with hurdles. It’s all about honing those essential problem-solving skills that will serve them well in school and beyond.

Tip: To make this even more exciting, encourage your students to team up and work together. When they brainstorm and chat about their ideas, it can take their critical thinking skills to a whole new level!

Promotes a Love for Learning

Let’s make learning an adventure! STEM challenges turn the classroom into a place where students can have a blast while they learn. Children are naturally curious, and these activities tap into that curiosity. When kids are having fun, they’re more likely to remember what they’ve learned and develop a deep love for STEM subjects.

Tip: Choose challenges that match your students’ interests. Whether it’s building, experimenting, or exploring, let their passions lead the way. And don’t forget to weave in some fun stories and real-world examples to keep them engaged.

Builds Confidence and Resilience

Completing STEM challenges is a wonderful confidence booster! When students conquer obstacles and see their ideas come to life, they walk a little taller and believe in themselves, and what teacher wouldn’t love that?! Plus, they learn that mistakes are just stepping stones to success. That kind of resilience is a life skill that will stay with them long after they leave your classroom.

Tip: Celebrate every little success with your students. Emphasize the value of hard work and not giving up, even when things get tough. Encourage them to look back on their mistakes as opportunities to grow and do even better in the next challenge.

Looking for the perfect STEM challenge? Here are some super fun and engaging STEM challenges to try with your students:

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie STEM Challenge | Build a Mouse House

Be the teacher they remember with these engaging STEM Activities! Kids will have a blast learning about blueprints, floor plans, area, design, and writing while doing these activities! Use the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff as a HOOK with this STEM activity! Check it out!

Apollo Lunar Module STEM Challenge

Are you looking for an engaging STEM Challenge to enhance your space unit or to teach how the first man landed on the moon? This is a great challenge for students to use materials to create a Lunar Lander module to test for a soft landing with their “shock absorbers.”

Building 2D & 3D Shapes Toothpick Cards, Activities and Challenges

Are you looking for some fun STEM ideas to incorporate into building math geometry skills with 2D and 3D Shapes? I have you covered with these Build A Shape Mats! Print and laminate. Students build it with toothpicks and molding dough (you can use marshmallows or gumdrops instead), count the toothpicks, sides, vertices, and trace the words!

I hope you love these activities and that your students have lots of fun with them! Looking for more tips for STEM learning? Check out my post here!

The STEM Toothpick Challenge That Your Students Will Love!

October 8, 2021 teachersbrain STEM

When working with kindergarten and first grade students, it’s important to keep things fresh and exciting in the classroom. Their attention spans aren’t exactly long and they can get restless easily. STEM activities are a great way to do that!

When I was in the classroom, I was always looking for STEM activities that would make our lessons interesting and exciting for my students. I love STEM because it makes it so easy to increase student learning and educational outcomes. What kid doesn’t love to get their hands dirty and create?!

STEM challenges provide endless possibilities if you have some basic supplies stocked in your classroom.

Some great materials to have on hand include:

Bingo daubers
Whiteboards and Expo markers
Playdough
Pipe cleaners
Small candy
Finger paint
Shaving cream
Popsicle sticks
Aluminum foil
Pencils
Construction paper
Markers
Legos
Cotton balls
Tape
Straws

Another supply we use is tooth picks! These are a great, inexpensive supply you can use for so many things.

Our favorite activity is this STEM Toothpick Challenge.

This is a hands-on activity you can use when you are teaching about 2D and 3D shapes. This resource comes with Build A Shape mats to show students what shapes to make. Just print and laminate them and you can use them year after year.

Students build their 2D and 3D shapes with toothpicks and playdough. You can use marshmallows or gumdrops instead if preferred. Students will engage in STEM thinking as they count the toothpicks, sides, vertices, and trace the words.

Included with this resource you get:

8 2D Mats for shape building
6 3D Mats for shape building
2 Recording sheets
2 Answer keys

This challenge encourages thinking, teaches shape recognition, sides, and vertices, and increases problem solving skills.

Check it out here!

If you are looking for more STEM activities, check out my STEM challenge here that ties in with the book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Numeroff.

What are your favorite STEM activities for kindergarten and first grade? Let me know in the comments!

Teaching Forms of Energy

September 18, 2020 teachersbrain Science, STEM

Energy is the ability to do work. We know this, and we appreciate the ways we use energy in our everyday lives. For our students however, this is not necessarily something they would think much about. Our kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade students may not even know a lot about the energy they use every day like sunlight, food, and electricity. They also may not think of light, sound, and heat as types of energy. This is a very important topic for students to understand.

Something that is important is to know your students’ misconceptions. Most likely, they don’t know what energy looks like. They may think that light can’t move through objects. They may have never thought about vibration creating sound. Teaching these concepts can be really fun with a little prep work!

Here are some tips for teaching energy forms to your students.

Take it slow. It can be a challenging concept for younger students to grasp at first. You don’t want to overwhelm them right from the start. Plan it out ahead of time and take it one step at a time.
Explain what energy is first, and then start offering examples of energy (sound, heat, and light). Breaking it down will make a difference in student comprehension.
Try reading some books about energy forms. Usually, books are a great way to learn more about subjects from a different source, which can be a great thing for the trickier topics.
Do a variety of activities to get lots of practice. You can do fun science experiments if you want, or you can keep it simple and straightforward. Tell your students that they are the scientists and their job is to understand forms of energy.

This Forms of Energy Activities resource for kindergarten and first grade would be a great addition to your forms of energy lesson plans. It covers sound, heat, and light with a 3 week plan including 3 inquiry lessons, data notebook, rubric, home project, and more.

Here’s some more information on what is included in this Forms of Energy resource:

Lesson Plan (What is a Scientist?) WEEK 1

Lesson Plan (Science Tools) WEEK 2

Lesson Plan (Scientific Method) WEEK 3

Act It Out (Teacher calls out the energy word, students act it out)

Draw or List forms of energy

Forms of Energy Writing and Drawing Printable

Forms of Energy – Heat, Light, Sound Interactive Notebook Page

Energy Mini-Book

Venn Diagram – compare fire and the sun

Ask a Friend – Practice collecting data, predicting and collecting evidence

I SPY Sound Items

Draw what you think sound looks like

Interactive Notebook pages for making a pocket full of things that make sound

Sound Energy Mini-Book

Venn Diagram compare the soft sound of the beach to the loud sound of the music room at school

Writing Page about Sound Energy

Draw 3 forms of energy in the circle.

Inquiry Lesson Light Experiment with various Items to see if light passes through

Inquiry Student Page to collect

Hear and See Sound Experiment

Hear and See Sound by showing vibration

Melting Ice Teacher Instructions for Inquiry Lesson

Student page to collect data on melting ice experiment

Fun Science Hat/Headband

What is energy? Poster

Vocabulary Posters (sound, soft, vibrate, loud, heat, light)

Energy Notebook Journal with Rubric

What activities do you like to do to help your students understand forms of energy? Let me know in the comments below!

For more science activities and lessons, check out my post here!