Summer Outdoor Fun with STEM
By: Ann Axon
Everyone is talking about the importance of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) to our children’s lives. Summer is a great time to beat the “there’s nothing to do” with some of these fun and simple STEM activities. You can find many ideas on the internet and Pinterest by searching, Simple STEM experiments and you can narrow the search by adding the age level of your child (preschool, school age or enter their grade level) so that you won’t be pulling up experiments that are too old or too easy!
Here are a few sites that are worth checking out!
Don’t worry if you’re not a rocket scientist (although there are plenty of shooting rocket activities!) most of the activities you will find walk you through the activity step by step, have a list of items you need (most are things you have already or make a trip to the nearest Dollar Store), and usually a video that shows you how it works. You can involve your kids from the start by letting them pick out the experiment (which helps keep their reading level up). You can have them gather the materials needed (helps with organizing skills) and go over the directions step by step (more reading and helps with learning sequencing). I bet you didn’t know you could make these summer fun activities a sneaky learning activity too!
So this summer when you hear that whine – “there’s nothing to do!” pull up some of these activities and no matter how they turn out- I guarantee that there will be laughter and fun!