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Make sure to either save a copy in your own drive, or download/print.

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I made some water balloon yo-yos for the kids, an idea I spotted here - what a fun and active way to beat the heat!! To make your own, you will need a package of water balloons (I see these at the dollar store all the time during the Summer months), and some elastic string or large rubber bands.

Fill the balloons with water, as per the packages instructions. Cut the rubber band to form one long strand, and tie one end to the water balloon.

Yo-yo like a crazy monkey!!!

Water balloons are great fun when they burst, and even more fun when they leak just a bit!

Ahhhhhh.... refreshing! For safety, always supervise the kids, and be sure to clean up any broken balloon pieces right away.

Stay cool and have fun!!

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I made some water balloon yo-yos for the kids, an idea I spotted here - what a fun and active way to beat the heat!! To make your own, you will need a package of water balloons (I see these at the dollar store all the time during the Summer months), and some elastic string ...

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Gather materials outdoors and test which ones will float.

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Water play is a perfect outdoor activity for toddlers on warm summer days. Add materials gathered in nature to a simple sink or float activity to provide some awesome hands on learning and sensory play.

Sink and Float Water Play with Natural Materials

This activity combines a nature walk or scavenger hunt with water play. Gather some leaves, rocks, twigs or other natural materials with your toddler. It's' a great play based math activity too.

Allow your young adventurer time to examine objects in natural surroundings, and fill your pockets with interesting treasures!

We would love to see some pics of your seashells sensory bin setup - share them in our Facebook Group or over on Instagram (follow @myboredtoddler and use #myboredtoddler so we can all see!).

Water play is easy to provide with just a small tub of water and items to add to the water. Place the natural materials you collected to one side of the tub. You can use any kind of container - I like one like THIS that stores easily under the bed!

Provide different textures, colors, and sizes in your supply of materials. Include leaves, flowers, twigs, stones, or other items you find in nature.

Place items one at a time in the water and observe whether each item sinks or floats.

Water play is a child-led activity, which means it invites kids to participate with few instructions. But it's helpful to engage with early learners as they interact with the materials to support opportunities for learning through play.

One important way to engage is with meaningful conversation: naming colors; counting items; drawing attention to specific details or events.
What will happen if we put a twig or rock on the leaf? How many twigs are floating in the water? Your green leaf looks like a boat.
Along with sink and float there are lots of other ways to play in the water tub.

1. Drop materials into the water from above the tub to see if they make a splash.

2. Swirl the water with your hands to see which materials move around.

3. Sort the materilas according to which ones sink or float, as well as by size, from smallest to biggest.

Water play is a simple activity to provide for your toddler, but a valuable opportunity to support early literacy, fine motor skills, and math skills.

You can bring the fun indoors with a little preparation in the form of drop cloths and protective clothing.

Indoors or outdoors, water play is fun sensory play that will result in lots of giggles - and splashes! - for you and your toddler.

We would love to see some pics of your seashells sensory bin setup - share them in our Facebook Group or over on Instagram (follow @myboredtoddler and use #myboredtoddler so we can all see!).

Some more toddler activities you might enjoy are:
Water Play for Babies & Toddlers Sensory Bins for Toddlers
About the Author

Heather is a former preschool teacher and founder of preschooltoolkit.com, a website providing early learning resources for teachers and parents. She focuses on creating fun crafts and activities that engage developmental skills while promoting hands-on learning through play. Follow her on , , , and

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Sink and Float Water Play with Natural Materials

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Water play is a perfect outdoor activity for toddlers on warm summer days. Add materials gathered in nature to a simple sink or float activity to provide some awesome hands on learning and sensory play. This activity combines a nature walk or scavenger hunt with water play.

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Make music with water!

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Science truly surrounds us even in the sounds we hear! This water xylophone experiment is truly a must do science activity for young kids. So simple to set up, it's kitchen science at it's finest with plenty of room to explore and be playful with it. Try this easy sound waves experiment with water in glass jars for a hands-on science project for kids.

Explore Sounds Waves With Water

Have you ever heard of the phrase kitchen science? Ever wondered what it means? It's probably pretty easy to guess, but I will share anyway! Let's show our kids how cool it is to play with science.
Read more below on how you can extend this sound science experiment, add in the scientific process, and create your own sound waves science experiment.
Kitchen science is science that can come out of the kitchen supplies you have! Easy to do, easy to set up, inexpensive, and perfect science for young kids. Set it up on your counter and go!

For several pretty obvious reasons, a homemade water xylophone experiment is the perfect kitchen science! All you need is mason jars {or other glasses}, food coloring, water, and set up chopsticks or even a spoon or butter knife to explore sound.

ALSO CHECK OUT: 30 Water Experiments For Kids

Did you ever wonder how to make science easy enough to do at home or with a larger group of kids, this is it! We love sharing the simplest of ideas to get you started and comfortable with sharing science with your kids.

What Is The Scientific Method For Kids?

The scientific method is a process or method of research. A problem is identified, information about the problem is gathered, a hypothesis or question is formulated from the information, and the hypothesis is tested with an experiment to prove or disprove its validity.

Sounds heavy... What in the world does that mean?!? It means you don't need to try and solve the world's biggest science questions! The scientific method is all about studying and learning things right around you.

As children develop practices that involve creating, gathering data evaluating, analyzing, and communicating, they can apply these critical thinking skills to any situation.

READ MORE HERE: Using The Scientific Method with Kids

Note: The use of the best Science and Engineering Practices is also relevant to the topic of using the scientific method. Read more here and see if it fits your science planning needs.

Helpful Science Resources To Get You Started

Here are a few resources that will help you introduce science more effectively to your kiddos or students and feel confident yourself when presenting materials. You'll find helpful free printables throughout.

How Does A Water Xylophone Work

When you tap the empty jars or glasses, they all made the same sound. Adding different amounts of water changes the noise, sound, or pitch.

What do you notice about the amounts of water versus the sound or pitch that is created? The more water, the lower the pitch! The less water, the higher the pitch!

Sound waves are vibrations that travel through the medium which in this case is water! When you change the amount of water in the jars or glasses, you also change the sound waves!

Water Xylophone Experiment

Make sure to have your kids tap the empty jars first to get an idea of the starting sound! Have them predict what will happen when they add water. They can also create a hypothesis to explain what happens when more or less water is added. Read more here on the scientific process for young kids.

Supplies:

Food coloring (we used blue, yellow and green for varying shades of green)

Wooden sticks (we used bamboo skewers)

4+ mason jars

Instructions:

STEP 1. Fill the jars with varying levels of water. You can eyeball the amounts or grab the measuring cups and get a little more scientific with your exploration.

STEP 2. Add food coloring to make different colors for each note. More water equals lower sound or pitch and less water equals a higher sound or pitch. We made our jars pure green, dark green, blue-green, and yellow-green!

Things To Try With Your Water Glass Xylophone

Does tapping the sides of the jars make a purer sound than tapping the tops of the jars?

Try adjusting the water levels to create new sounds.

Try using different liquids and compare results. Different liquids have different densities and the sound waves will travel differently through them. Fill two jars the same amount but with two different liquids and observe the differences!

Try using different tools for tapping the glasses. Can you tell the difference between the wood chopstick and a metal butter knife?

If you want to get super fancy, you can use a tuning app to raise or lower the water level to match specific notes. We tested out a little bit although we are not music experts over here, it's a fun way to take the experiment a step farther for older kids.

More Fun Ways To Explore Water Science

Printable Science Projects For Kids

If you're looking to grab all of our printable science projects in one convenient place plus exclusive worksheets and bonuses like a STEAM Project pack, our Science Project Pack is what you need! Over 300+ Pages!

90+ classic science activities with journal pages, supply lists, set up and process, and science information. NEW! Activity-specific observation pages!

Best science practices posters and our original science method process folders for extra alternatives!

Be a Collector activities pack introduces kids to the world of making collections through the eyes of a scientist. What will they collect first?

Know the Words Science vocabulary pack includes flashcards, crosswords, and word searches that illuminate keywords in the experiments!

My science journal writing prompts explore what it means to be a scientist!!

Bonus STEAM Project Pack: Art meets science with doable projects!

Bonus Quick Grab Packs for Biology, Earth Science, Chemistry, and Physics

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Water Xylophone Experiment - Little Bins for Little Hands

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Get rockin and rollin with a homemade water xylophone experiment. Perfect for the young scientist to explore sound waves with water!

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Coloring, labeling, drawing

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The Animals:

Whales

Sea Otters

Fish

Mollusks

Crustaceans

and many more that live in the oceans

The Plants:

Algae

Sea Grasses

Phytoplankton

Coral Reefs

Seaweed

Marsh Grasses

Sea Anemones

Sea Cabbage

and many others that haven't been discovered yet..

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Animals & Plants of the Marine - Biomes of the World

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The Animals: Whales Sea Otters Fish Mollusks Crustaceans and many more that live in the oceans The Plants: Algae Sea Grasses Phytoplankton Coral Reefs Seaweed Marsh Grasses Sea Anemones Sea Cabbage and many others that haven't been discovered yet..

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Coloring, labeling, drawing

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Animals & Plants of the Freshwater - Biomes of the World

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Apply the scientific method to this drops-on-a-penny science activity and turn it into a surface tension experiment by choosing a question to investigate.

How many drops do you think will fit on a penny? (PREDICTION)

What happens when one drop of water meets another drop? (OBSERVATION)

Which coin held the most water? (EXPLANATION)

Can you think of everyday examples of surface tension? (APPLICATION)

PENNY DROP EXPERIMENT

Let's investigate how many drops of water can fit on a penny. Grab your purse, turn over the couch cushions, or break out the piggy bank; it's time to find some pennies to experiment with!
Looking for easy science process information and free journal pages? We have you covered...

WHY DO SO MANY DROPS OF WATER FIT ON A PENNY?

Were you surprised that a lot more drops of water fit on a penny than you predicted? We had 27 drops of water on ours! Surface tension and cohesion are why you can get so many drops of water on a penny. Cohesion is the "stickiness" of like molecules to one another. Water molecules love to stick together! Surface tension is the result of all the water molecules sticking together. Learn more about the surface tension of water! Once the water has reached the edge of the penny, a dome shape begins to form. This is due to the surface tension forming a shape with the least amount of surface area possible (like bubbles)!

MORE FUN SCIENCE WITH PENNIES

MORE FUN SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS

Check out our list of science experiments for Jr Scientists!

MORE FUN IS AVAILABLE NOW!! CLICK BELOW...

For full instructions and cool projects, grab the done-for-you project packs below 👇!

Science experiments with things found in your purse or pocket? It sounds like a great indoor activity for the kiddos! How many drops fit on a penny? Explore the surface tension of water when you try this fun penny lab with the kids. We are always on the hunt for simple science experiments, and this one is just super fun and easy!

HOW MANY DROPS CAN FIT ON A PENNY?

DROPS OF WATER ON A PENNY

Get ready to add this simple penny lab activity to your science activities this season. If you want to learn about the surface tension of water, let's dig in. While you're at it, make sure to check out these other fun water science experiments.

Our science activities and experiments are designed with you, the parent or teacher, in mind! Easy to set up and quick to do, most activities take only 15 to 30 minutes to complete and are loads of fun! Plus, our supplies lists usually contain only free or cheap materials you can source from home!

How many drops do you think will fit on a penny? (PREDICTION)

What happens when one drop of water meets another drop? (OBSERVATION)

Which coin held the most water? (EXPLANATION)

Can you think of everyday examples of surface tension? (APPLICATION)

PENNY DROP EXPERIMENT
We have you covered...

WHY DO SO MANY DROPS OF WATER FIT ON A PENNY?

Were you surprised that a lot more drops of water fit on a penny than you predicted? We had 27 drops of water on ours! Surface tension and cohesion are why you can get so many drops of water on a penny. Cohesion is the "stickiness" of like molecules to one another. Water molecules love to stick together! Surface tension is the result of all the water molecules sticking together. Learn more about the surface tension of water! Once the water has reached the edge of the penny, a dome shape begins to form. This is due to the surface tension forming a shape with the least amount of surface area possible (like bubbles)!

MORE FUN SCIENCE WITH PENNIES

MORE FUN SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS

Check out our list of science experiments for Jr Scientists!

MORE FUN IS AVAILABLE NOW!! CLICK BELOW...

For full instructions and cool projects, grab the done-for-you project packs below 👇!

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Drops on a Penny Lab: Surface Tension | Little Bins for Little Hands

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Apply the scientific method to this drops-on-a-penny science activity and turn it into a surface tension experiment by choosing a question to investigate. How many drops do you think will fit on a penny? (PREDICTION) What happens when one drop of water meets another drop? (OBSERVATION) Which coin held the most water?

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Songs- sing songs in the target language, practice them daily so that the campers learn the words, can be songs from the teacher’s country or translated from English (for example- “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”).

Hand-Clapping Chants- learn hand-clapping chants.  Practice them daily so campers learn to do them on their own.

Outdoor Games- learn popular games from the teacher’s country or play a game campers already know (soccer, hopscotch) but with the new vocabulary from the target language

Scavenger Hunts- In a scavenger hunt, the teacher creates a list of items to go out and find.  For example, if you are practicing colors, the teacher would write all of the colors on a piece of paper.  After, the class would walk around the school or outside together to try and find as many green, blue or yellow items as possible.  Kids can work in pairs to see which group can locate the most items.

Stories- Bring in books in the target language to share with the class.  Tell stories using puppets.  For the Blue and Yellow camps, tell the students stories and fairy tales that they are already familiar with (Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood) but in your own language.  Share popular stories and folktales from your country.

Whispering Game- Divide the class into two teams. Line up the players. If there is an odd number of players, one can be the teacher's "helper". The teacher or his helper whispers a message to the first person of both group A and group B. The game only starts when both players know the message. Then each player whispers the message to the next player in his group successively until the last player gets the message. The team which can repeat the message first and correctly receives a point. This can be a good way to learn “common phrases.”  For a bigger challenge in the Green camps, have the last person in line write the sentence or phrase on the whiteboard.   Start the game over with the second student of each group becoming the first ones in line.  From- http://iteslj.org/games/

Role Playing- Set up role playing activities that use the vocabulary you are studying in class.  For example, help the students set up a restaurant (older kids can create their own menus) and then act out/play restaurant using the vocabulary for food, taking orders, and paying the check.

Act Out an Activity-This is a game-like activity to teach verbs of movement (run, jump, laugh, speak, read, etc) in the target language.  One student simply acts out some activity (e.g. cooking) and the other students guess what that student is doing. The student who guesses correctly acts out another activity.  From- http://iteslj.org/games/

Flashcards- Use picture flashcards to practice new vocabulary.  Have students help you make the flashcards. For example if you are learning the names of places in a community (school, bank, post office, police station, etc), have one child draw a picture and, if they are older, write the name of each place.  Then collect the pictures and use these as flashcards to review the vocabulary as a class.

The Hokey Pokey- Translate this song into your own language.  This is a fun way to practice the names of different body parts.  All kids stand in a circle while they sing.  They follow the movement instructions in the song. Repeat the song with different body parts. “You put your ARM in.  You put your ARM out.  You put your ARM in and shake it all about.  You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around.  That’s what it’s all about!”

Simon Says- One child or the teacher is the leader.  In the target language he/she says “Simon says touch your arm.”  Everyone else copies the leader.  The leader continues to give commands that the group follows.  If the leader gives a command without saying the words “Simon says” and someone does the command, he or she is out.  This is a great game for practicing body part vocabulary or verbs (dance, stretch, sign, sit down, stand up, etc.).

Commando (similar to “Simon Says”)- The teacher is the commando and gives commands to the class and/or individual students. This is a great energy burner as well as review of actions colors, numbers or anything else you can throw in. E.g. "Jump 10 times", "Touch your (body part)", "Touch (classroom object", "Turn around", "Stand up / Sit down".

Bingo- A great game to practice a lot of different vocabulary- numbers, letters, shapes, colors, etc. For example, if you are studying animal vocabulary, have each student create a unique bingo card with a picture of a different animal in each square.  Have students take turns being the “caller” and calling out the vocabulary words.

Ball Games to Learn New Phrases- Everyone (including the teacher) sits in a circle.  The teacher has a ball or other item in her lap.  She introduces a new phrase to the class (for example “my name is ---”).   The teacher says the phase and then passes the ball to a child. The child repeats the phase, adding his or her own name, and then throws the ball to another child.  Each child repeats the phrase until the ball comes back to the teacher.  At this point the teacher can introduce a new phrase (for example, “I am --- years old”).  The game continues with the new phrase.   This can also be used with questions “Do you like----?”  “Yes, I do./No, I don’t” or “Can you -----?”  “Yes, I can./No, I can’t”

Journals- On the first day make a journal where campers can record the new vocabulary words that they learn throughout the session.  Campers can take time to decorate the cover to make it unique/special.  Each day they can write the new words that they learn in the journal.  Green campers could write stories or poems that incorporate some of the new vocabulary they learn.

Jump Rope Games- Campers learn a jump rope chant in the target language and then practice it together outside.  For example, this jump rope chant in Spanish which practices counting:

“A, E, I, O, U ¿Cuántos años tienes tú?  Todavía no lo sé, pero pronto lo sabré...uno, dos, tres, cuatro......”

Line Activities- Use this game to practice a new phrase (for example:  “How old are you?”  or “When is your birthday?”).  Introduce the phrase to the students.  Practice it a few times together. Then tell the kids that they must make a line in the order of their birthdays from January to December.  The child with the earliest birthday in the year will be first, while the child with the latest birthday will be last.  Children must ask and answer the question “When is your birthday?” until they correctly get themselves in order.

Tongue Twisters- Learn and practice a tongue twister (a rhyme or sentence that is difficult to say) in the target language.  Here’s an example of a tongue twister in English:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,

where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Paper Airplane Game- Draw a target (with points - like a dart board) on the white board or use a cardboard box in the middle of the room. Then, students make paper airplanes and launch them after they answer your question in the form of a sentence. Correct the students’ sentences as needed. Often kids will repeat the sentence several times to get it right just so they can throw their airplane.  From- http://iteslj.org/games/

Guess the Letter on Your Back- This game is used to practice the alphabet or characters. Divide students into groups and ask them to stand in line and give the students in the front of the line a piece of chalk to write on the blackboard. Then write with your finger a letter on the back of the students at the end of the line. They must do the same with the student in front of him/her and so on. The students with the chalk try to guess the letter or character and write it on the board. From- http://iteslj.org/games/

Describing Appearances & Characteristics of People-Each student is given one sheet of paper. One student sits at the front of a room.  He/she describes a person and the rest of the class draws the person being described. Once the student has finished describing that person, each student shows his/her drawing. The laughter from this is hilarious as the impressions tend to make the character in question look funny.  Students can get creative by saying (in the target language) that the person has “three, long arms” or “six big, green eyes.” From- http://iteslj.org/games/

Guessing the Word from a Drawing- Ask one student to be in front of the class. Give him/her a word that can not be seen by other students. He/she will draw (on the blackboard) a picture expressing the concept of the word.  The rest of the class have to guess the word. If you are keeping score, the one who drew the picture gets the point if the class can guess the word. From- http://iteslj.org/games/

Market- Talk about some famous markets in your country and how they might be different from a market here. What kinds of things can people buy?  When are they open?  Do you bargain? Create and set up a market in the classroom.  Have some kids be the “vendors” and other kids the “shoppers.” Give the shoppers some pretend money to use.  Have them practice phrases and numbers that you have learned to “buy” different items at the market.  After a while, have children switch the role of vendor or shopper.

Mixed Up Stories- Take a simple story in the target language and cut it up into different sections. Mix up the sections of the story.  The child can work with a partner or a small group to put the story together.  Follow up this activity by looking at new vocabulary in the story, asking comprehension questions, etc.

Stories or Comic Books- Have the campers write and illustrate a story or draw a comic book using new vocabulary or related to one of the themes of the unit.

Song Fill in the Blank- Choose a popular song from your country.  Print out the lyrics and white out 10 or so words from the song.  Have the students listen to the song several times to see if they can figure out the missing words.  Afterwards, review the song together and then sing it as a group.

Words Beginning with a Given Letter- The teacher chooses a letter from the alphabet. Then each student must say a word that begins with that letter. If a student repeats a word that has already been said, then he/she is out of the game. The game ends when only one student remains. That student is the winner. You can increase the difficulty by adding a timer. Only allow each student 5 seconds to think of a word. From- http://iteslj.org/games/

Catching up on your ABC's- This game is short and simple. Write the alphabet on the board. Throw a bean bag to someone and say a word beginning with the letter A. This person must catch the bean bag, say a word beginning with the letter B and then throw it to another person This third person says a word beginning with the letter C and so on. Obviously the game is meant to be played fast. If played with higher level students you may not want to write the alphabet on the board. There are many ways to change the game to make it adaptable to your level of students. From- http://iteslj.org/games/

Alphabet Writing Relay-  Divide and line up the students into two teams. Divide the board into two halves.  Call out an alphabet letter or character that the students know.  Have the first person in line run to the board and draw the letter/character.  Continue...

Basic Flashcard Fun- The teacher simply holds up a flash card and elicits the answer from the students. This can be done in teams with points awarded for correct answers.  We have flashcards for things like emotions, nouns, common verbs, etc.

Beat The Clock-  Time the students as they race to put alphabet, days of the week, or month flashcards in order. Have them try again to see if they can beat their fastest time.

Bluff-  The object of the game is to be the first student to get rid of all his/her cards. Divide the students into small group and deal flashcards to each student. Player 1 chooses a card from his/her hand and throws it face down on the table saying, for example, "I have (a cat)". Player 1 may be telling the truth or bluffing. If player 2 has a 'cat' in his/her hand then there's a good chance player 1 is bluffing. Player 2 should say "No, you don't". If player 1 was bluffing, player 2 gives player 1 a penalty card from his/her hand. If player 1 was telling the truth then he/she gives player 2 a penalty card from his/her hand. Continue until one student is out of cards.

The Bomb- Pass a ball, object or a flash card around a circle of students. When the timer rings, the student holding the ball must answer a question, make a sentence or say a word.

Car Race- Arrange the flash cards in a long line with starting and finishing points. Give each student a counter. The first student throws the dice and moves. The student must say the word on the flashcard he/she lands on. If the student makes a mistake, he/she goes back to his/her original place. Add colored paper between cards to represent 'Take Another Turn', and assign a crash number e.g. #4 on the dice which means the student must return to the beginning.

Concentration / Memory-  Have the students sit in a circle. Spread out the flashcards (2 sets) face down. Students take turns flipping over two cards and saying the vocabulary. If the flashcards are a match, the student keeps the cards. If they are different, they remain face down. The student with the most pairs is the winner.

Conversation Relay- Line up the students in two teams and have the last student in each team tap the shoulder of the student in front and have a conversation E.g. "What's you name?", "How are you?". The student answering then starts the same conversation with the student in front, and so on. When the conversation reaches the front, the student at the front must run to the back and continue the procedure. The first team to get all the students back in their original positions wins.

Crazy Train- Students line up behind the teacher in a choo choo train line. Give commands such as "faster", "slower", "turn left", and "stop".

Draw It Relay- Divide the students into two teams. Whisper a flashcard to the first member of both teams and have them run to the board and draw the word as fast as possible. Award points to the fastest team.

Duck Duck Goose- Students sit in a circle and the teacher starts by walking round the outside of the circle tapping the students on the head saying "duck". When the teacher says "goose" the student whose head was touched must jump up and chase the teacher round the circle. The teacher must sit down in the student's spot before being tagged. If tagged, the teacher must continue tapping heads. If not, the student walks around the circle touching heads. It might be easier to use vocabulary like "cat, cat, dog" or similar, or even "duck, duck, dog" to practice awareness of 'u' vs 'o' and 'g' vs 'ck' sounds.

Find It-  The teacher holds up a letter flashcard. The students must search around the room to find either a corresponding object/picture that begins with that letter or find that same letter written somewhere in the room. The purpose of this game is letter recognition. It can be played as a relay race with two teams racing to find the letters first.

Flash Card Act Out-  Choose one or more students to come to the front. Show a flash card or whisper a word, and have the students act it out. Reward the first student to guess the correct answer. This can be used with many subjects (e.g. sports, actions, verbs, animals, etc.)

Jumping The Line- Put a piece of tape across the middle of the floor or draw an imaginary line dividing the room. Designate ones side as 'true' and the other side as 'false'. Line up the students on the line, hold up a flashcard and say a word. If the students think you said the word that matches the flashcard, they should jump to the 'true' side, otherwise they should jump to the 'false' side. Students who make a mistake should sit out until the next round.

Listen and Order- Put the students into pairs and give them number cards (1-10). Call out numbers (out of order) and have the students put their cards in that order. When finished, have the students chant the numbers in the order you gave them.

Map Game- Use a world map and elicit "Where are you from?", "Where do you live?", "Where do people speak Spanish?", "Where's China?", and any other questions you can think of. Also show and tell the students about where you are from.

Memory Tray (good for practicing vocabulary for food, clothing, animals, etc) Bring in a tray of various review or new objects. Elicit the names of the objects and give the students a minute to memorize what's on the tray. Take the tray away and see how many objects can be remembered. Older students should write a list of objects. The student who remembers the most objects gets a point. Can be done with flashcards.

Musical Chairs- Line up the chairs and place a flashcard on each one. Play some music and have the students walk, skip, jump around the chairs. When the music stops, the students should sit down on a chair and shout out their flash cards. For more excitement remove a chair while the music is playing and make the chair-less student sit out until the next round.

Pass It-  Have the students sit in a circle. The teacher holds up a flashcard or object (e.g. ball, pen, eraser, etc.), says the word and passes it to the next student. That student holds up the card/object and says the vocabulary and passes it on. After a couple of rounds start the flash cards/objects going in the opposite direction. Also try a speed round.

Ship In The Fog (for practicing directions)- Make an obstacle course, put a blindfold on a student and have the other students verbally help him or her through the course. For example: Take 2 steps, turn left, one small step, etc.

What’s Missing?- Scatter 8-10 flashcards face up on the table. Give the students a minute to look at them, then have them close their eyes and take away one flashcard. Tell the students to open their eyes and ask, "What's missing?". Reward the student that guesses correctly.

What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?-  Have the students line up against the back wall. The teacher should stand with his/her back turned to the class. The students must ask the teacher "What time is it, Mr. Fox (or teacher's name if easier)?". The teacher answers with a random time, e.g. "It's four o'clock" - the students take four steps toward the teacher. The students should move the corresponding number of steps. If the teacher says "It's lunch time!", the students must run to safety at the back wall. The teacher chases the students and if tagged, the student must sit out until the next round.

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Use water, oil, glitter, food coloring/paint to make a personalized calm jar

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What’s a “flinker”? It’s an object that neither floats on the water’s surface nor sinks to the bottom…it flinks in the middle! Students will be asked to test items to see if they float or sink in a basin of water. They’ll then be asked to create a flinker out of provided supplies like Styrofoam peanuts or corks, aluminum foil, paper clips, and tacks or push pins. Students will have to record what materials they used to create their object and how long it was able to flink in the middle of the water basin.

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Remember the Eyedropper Fill The Dot activity we did a while back? It was a big hit. This is a lot like that one! This time I made a water drop maze for my kids.

This maze is so easy to make and my kids had lots of fun with it!

You can make your own, or use my printable Water the Garden Maze version!

How To Make a Water Drop Maze:

Draw a simple maze on a sheet of card stock paper. I used a ruler, to make the lines straight.

Once you have the lines drawn, (or if you are printing the water garden one) laminate the paper. If you don't have a laminator, you could use wax paper or a sheet protector as well.

To make a tricky challenge, you can hole punch a few holes on it. Once it's laminated it is harder to hole punch. You have to bend the paper.

Mix some food coloring into a little bit of water, this makes it more visible. Using an eye dropper, put a droplet of water at start. Move the maze around to get the drop of water to finish!

My kids want me to make a couple more so we can have some water drop maze races!

This is a great sensory play activity for kids! It is also a fun way to learn about the properties of water!

Check out the eyedropper fill the dot activity!

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Remember the Eyedropper Fill The Dot activity we did a while back? It was a big hit. This is a lot like that one! This time I made a water drop maze for my kids. This maze is so easy to make and my kids had lots of fun with it!

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This Skittles experiment started out as a simple idea to play with some candy science on a quiet afternoon, but quickly it developed into this gorgeous exploration of colors and movement inspired by the artist Vincent van Gogh. Who knew skittles and water could become such an amazing STEAM project?

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This is such an easy and fun experiment and a great idea if you want to do something a little unique with your Skittles for the science fair. All you need is some Skittles and water to create some serious wow moments.

We started with a simple experiment where we made a ring around the outside of the plate with Skittles, added some water and watched the colors flow around the plate without mixing (unless we disturbed the water). It was very pretty and happened very fast making this a great, quick, easy and budget friendly science experiment.

Once we did the simple experiment, the kids had some questions and ideas. The most intriguing was, "Could we create pictures and art with Skittles science?" Turns out the answer is YES!

Questions are a key part of the scientific method, along with observation and inquiry. So whenever we are doing experiments I encourage the kids to ask questions. To brainstorm and wonder. These are important skills we want to develop in our young scientists.

You never know where a child's simple question may take you in your lessons! In this case we were able to combine an interest in science with our interest in van Gogh.

So let's step back for a moment and discuss the science that underlies everything we did here.

The science behind why the colors do not mix is known as water stratification. Each color of Skittle has a slightly different chemical make up which, when dissolved, creates a water solution that has slightly different properties such as density, salinity, and oxygenation. This creates a barrier that prevents the water from mixing and is why salt water and fresh water do not mix.

Another scientific property that is at work here is called concentration gradient. Simply put this is the process where molecules will move from high concentration to lower concentration areas. We see this as the colors move through the water.

We explored similar concepts in our Lollipop Layers experiment, another fun candy science project.

Remember, part of this Skittles experiment to create art was being creative and imaginative! Prepare to do it a few times, creating new art each time.

Set out the supplies

You will need a good sized white plate, lots of Skittles (snacking will happen!), and water. Ensure you are set up in an area where the plate will not be disturbed. Any vibration or movement could affect your results.

Arrange the Skittles

Consider what you want your art to look like and start arranging your Skittles in a pattern around the plate that you think will work best for your Skittles colorful art creation.

Add water

Gently pour the water onto the plate.

Wait and watch

Very quickly you will start to see the colors travel. Watch to see how they move about the plate and what happens when they meet up with other colors. Depending on the size of your creation this will take about 10 minutes.

Repeat

Our favorite part of this experiment was creating a variety of different art pieces. We did a happy face, a house in a meadow under a sunny sky, the night sky with Northern lights, and finally our recreation of Starry Night.

Our set up.

And after we added water to our Skittles.

It didn't quite turn out how we wanted, it is much more clown like than we intended, but we were on a role and ready to tackle more art projects!

Our layout of Skittles candy for our art.

Once we added our water it was like a fairy village came alive with all the magical colors!

We get a lot of Northern Lights around here, so next we tried to replicate it. We started with a simple set up.

Once we added the water it was like we had Northern Lights dancing across the sky filled with twinkling yellow starlight!

For our big final piece we created was our Starry Night, made from Skittles and water. To create this piece we pulled up a picture of Starry Night and tried to replicate the position of the swirls and stars, plus the moon.

When we added our water we noticed we didn't get the swirls we were hoping for, but after applying the scientific method, doing some observations and critical thinking, we decided to try creating our swirls another way.

We simply took a craft stick and gently pushed it through our Skittle colors. And it worked! We created wonderful swirls through the colors.

We also spent some time doing research into Starry Night. Did you know the swirls van Gogh created are mathematically perfect replications of "turbulent flow" in fluid dynamics? This is one of the most complex ideas to explain by mathematicians and physicists and wasn't even explained scientifically until 60 years later when Andrey Kolmogorov proposed his model of turbulence.

Starry Night was also painted by van Gogh while he was staying in a mental health asylum while struggling with such severe mental illness, he had recently cut off his own ear.

This project became so much more than just creating pretty pictures with candy as we learned more about his struggles with mental health and the incredible understanding he had of natural phenomenon. He is truly one of the greatest STEAMists of our time.

We really enjoyed this Ted-Ed video on the subject. Plus we were able to find a number of other books on the subject to help us with our research.

Applying the scientific method is actually a very simple process that we do every time we do a science experiment. It becomes second nature to think like a scientist once you get the hang of it. If you are doing this Skittles experiment as a science fair project, it might be your first time using the full methodology. So what is the Scientific Method and how do we apply it to this Skittles Experiment?

This is where kids shine. All kids have lots of questions. For this experiment our question was, "Can we create art and pictures with Skittles science?" Your question could be something completely different. Maybe if it is your child's first time doing Skittles Science they might ask, "Will the Skittles dissolve?" or "Will the colors mix?" Pick your question, it will be the driving force behind your science experiments.

Now we do some research. Since we already knew the science behind Skittles experiments, we did a bit more research in stratification and concentration gradients. We also ran some small tests using Skittles and water. This was because we developed a second question that impacted how we would proceed in doing our experiment to answer our main question. The first question we had to answer was, "Would one color spread more than another?" Once we had that answer we were ready to tackle our big question.

This is your prediction, based on research and perhaps some preliminary testing, on what the results will be of your experiment. We predicted we could make art with Skittles and water.

Next we set out to do some testing. We set up our Skittles (on nice white plates), added some water and watched our art work take shape.

This is where you can really fall down the rabbit hole of science! We did a number of tests. Where we carefully observed and evaluated the results of our Skittle art. We started with a happy face, then we created a house scene, then a sky. Each time we learned and tweaked our techniques. Until we were ready for our final experiment, seeing if we could create a Skittles experiment Starry Night!
What happens if you use water at different temperatures? What happens if you use different types of liquids? Water, vinegar, juice, pop? We used Skittles, but what would happen if you tried different candies? Lollipops, M&Ms, Starbursts, etc.
We analyzed the results to determine if our hypothesis was right, partially right, or completely wrong.

Finally we shared the results. This could be done as part of a science fair board presentation, a video report, a written report, or an online article on your favorite educational blog!

So for our experiment, we had the question, " Could we create art with a Skittles science experiment? "

Your questions may be completely different. Here are some ideas for you to consider when coming up with your concept for the science fair.

When doing your science fair projects, don't be afraid to think outside of the box and get creative. For the older kids tying in the science of Starry Night turns a simple Skittles and water experiment into an in-depth, fascinating study into a captivating artist and concepts that to this day still are the focus of work by mathematicians and physicists.

Have fun with your Skittles experiment creations!

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Skittles Experiment Exploring Colors and Science Inspired by Starry Night

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This Skittles experiment started out as a simple idea to play with some candy science on a quiet afternoon, but quickly it developed into this gorgeous exploration of colors and movement inspired by the artist Vincent van Gogh. Who knew skittles and water could become such an amazing STEAM project?

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Use large paint brushes to paint letters, designs, and pictures outside on sidewalks etc

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Say What? Blooming Paper Flowers? Yup, these little paper flowers will actually bloom right before your very eyes! This is such a fun and simple little experiment, but you have got to try it. It is perfect right now as Spring is starting to creep in. We are using our awesome Boise Paper for this experiment. They provided the paper and sponsored this post, but all thoughts and ideas are my own.

How to Make Blooming Paper Flowers:

All you need is some copy paper ( We used the Boise Polaris Premium Paper - it's available at Office Depot) and a container of water, but to make it more interesting we always have to add a little color!

Start by cutting out some paper flowers. You can use my printable Flower Template, or just cut your own.

After they were cut, we colored them with markers. We used markers because we wanted to see the colors swirl in the water.

Fold the flower petals into the center. You do not want to fold them tightly, just a loose fold or they will not open as well. Don't press the creases too tight. You can also add in a little surprise extra paper shape inside the folded flower. See what I mean in the video below.

Fill a bowl or other large container with a few inches of water. We used a plastic bin so we could do lots at once.

Place the folded flower into the water and the paper will absorb the water causing it to open the petals. It is pretty amazing to watch. They begin opening one at a time until it is all the way open. My 5-year-old was thrilled and yelled out "They're Blooming! How did you do that?"

So, if you want a simple experiment that is kind of like magic to little kids, try this one out!

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Say What? Blooming Paper Flowers? Yup, these little paper flowers will actually bloom right before your very eyes! This is such a fun and simple little experiment, but you have got to try it. It is perfect right now as Spring is starting to creep in.

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We all love bubbles, but have you ever made Bubble Snakes before? Our kids never tire of making exciting wiggly Bubble Snakes and it's been a favourite way to play that we've come back to again and again. This simple and cheap bubble activity is great fun for the garden or bath time and you'll love how quick and easy it is to put together.

Bubble Snake Play For Different Ages

All ages can join in with a Bubble Snake activity. Our kids have been enjoying bubble snakes since they were babies! When they were really tiny we would make the bubble snakes for them and they'd enjoy touching and squishing them with their hands. It's great fun to do outside, in the bath and on the high chair table top too. What a lovely sensory experience for them.

When the children were toddlers they were able to start trying to blow and make the bubble snakes themselves. Blowing a bubble snake can be quite hard work for a little one and they might need a bit of help to get started. It's a fabulous way to strengthen all the muscles of the lips and tongue that are so important for speech development. Blowing bubble snakes also gives young children practise in creating a long sustained outward breath, again an important skill for fluent speech production.

As children get older they are more and more able to blow the long fluffy bubble snakes themselves and you should see how they love to compete to make the biggest, longest, fluffiest bubble snake ever! Sometimes our children make such big ones they call them bubble clouds!

While you're here check out our other outside play ideas too.

Supplies To Make A Bubble Snake Blower

A clean empty plastic bottle

An elastic band

A piece of old towel or a flannel

Washing up liquid

Bowl

How To Make A Bubble Snake Blower

1. Remove the bottle lid and cut off the bottle base. (A bread knife works well.)

2. Cover the cut bottle end with a piece of towel or flannel and secure into place with the elastic band.

3. Squeeze about a cm depth of washing up liquid into the bowl and dilute with the same amount of water.

4. Dip the cut end of the bottle into the bubble mixture until the towelling is wet through.

5. Blow through the bottle opening and watch the bubbles snake down.

Making Multi Coloured Rainbow Bubble Snakes

Once your kids have mastered bubble snake blowing you can add to the fun by experimenting with adding colour too. You can add colour to your snake in different ways:

Water Colour Paints. Our kids love creating rainbow snakes by adding different coloured paint to the towelling fabric before they start to blow. you can do this by dipping it into paint or by using a brush to paint it on. If you use a variety of colours then you can create great rainbow effects and it's fun to see the colours mix.

Change the colour of your soap mix by adding paint or food colouring. This will give you a bubble snake of a single colour.

Food Colouring. You'll need to be careful not to stain clothes with this but it can give nice effects. Use droppers to add food colouring to the towelling. Like paint this method can give a multicoloured effect and you can keep dropping in different colours as you blow too.

Using Bubble Snakes To Encourage Children To Experiment And Question:

What to kind of blowing works best. Is it short hard blows or long soft blows?

If they are playing outside does the wind help or hinder?

Is the wind strong enough to carry their bubble snakes away? What's the biggest size that can be blown away?

What happens to the bubble snake on the wind? Does it stay together?

We hope you have lots of fun with this bubble activity for kids, it's been a firm family favourite of ours for years. Whether you're in the garden, the bath or playing with it on the table top, blowing bubble snakes is a lovely sensory experience across the age ranges.

Make sure young children know to blow not suck or they'll have a horrible tasting bubbly surprise in their mouths YUK!

More Fun Outside Activities To Explore:

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We all love bubbles, but have you ever made Bubble Snakes before? Our kids never tire of making exciting wiggly Bubble Snakes and it's been a favourite way to play that we've come back to again and again.

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Add circuit for Blue/Green camps if desired

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Circuit Bugs are one of our most popular original STEM activities here at STEAM Powered Family. We love how people all over the world have been building these adorable little bugs! So we figured it was time to build on our love of Circuit Bugs and create a new STEM activity - Circuit Flowers!

Circuit Flowers STEAM Activity
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When I created the Circuit Bug activity I wanted to develop a fun STEM twist on the typical crafting type projects. After my first little creation came to life, I was smitten. They were so darn cute! And my craft avoiding kids were actually excited to build and create. It was such a win, I couldn't wait to share it with the all my readers.

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And you loved Circuit Bugs as much as we do! Circuit Bugs continues to be a very popular activity in homes, schools and public programs. It is exciting to hear from people around the world that are loving our STEM bugs. Seeing your creations is always a highlight! So make sure you tag us on your builds on social media or linking to us here.

Since creating Circuit Bugs, we have also created Circuit-trees, Potato Circuits, Squishy Circuits, an Olympic Torch Circuit, plus we love our Creation Crate builds.

With all the circuit building love, we figured it was time to revisit our circuits and come up with something new for our readers to build. Since it is still crazy cold here, we are dreaming about spring and the arrival of flowers! It may still be months away until we get real flowers, but we can bring some flowers to life with a simple circuit building activity.

What You Need To Build Circuit Flowers

Since we have a circuit tinker center, it was easy to gather up everything we needed.

Coffee filters
Washable markers
Plates
Water
Water dropper or syringe
LEDs
Wire
Clothespin
CR2032 coin battery
Scissors
Electrical tape (green)
Mini solo cup or mini clay pot
Pipecleaners

HOW TO BUILD CIRCUIT FLOWERS

Building Circuit Flowers is actually slightly easier than Circuit Bugs. If you have a younger group, or students that are struggling with fine motor, this might be an easier build for them. The flowers might also appeal to girls more, and we are always trying to get more girls interested in STEM!

Chromatography Science To Create Art

This activity definitely falls into a full STEAM activity. The first step is to make your beautifully coloured papers using a technique called chromatography. This process works the best if you use secondary and tertiary colours, as they will separate as they spread, creating gorgeous patterns on your paper.

Start by flattening a coffee filter on a plate or other easy to clean surface. Using a washable marker draw a thick lined circle about half way between the middle and edge. You can use one colour, alternate colours, or even create a few circles (leave a wide space in between). There are no rules, except to ensure lots of white space is left to allow spreading of the colours.

Now add about a teaspoon of water to the middle of the coffee filter. As the water moves through the paper it will spread the colours out, and depending on your colours, may cause them to separate. You should end up with a beautiful water coloured papers.

Let dry completely.

Circuit Time - From Bugs to Flowers

If you have made our Circuit Bugs, you should be familiar with the process in building out our circuit.

First step - we always test the LED! The last thing you want to do is build your flower only to discover your LED doesn't work. Simply slip your coin battery between the legs of the LED. If it doesn't work, turn the battery around. If it still doesn't work you need a different LED.

Cut your wires and strip the ends. You need two wires, approximately 8 inches in length. Strip about half an inch from each end to expose the wire. These are your contact points with your battery and LED.

Take your coffee filter paper and grab it in the middle, roll and bunch it to gather it up and form your flower. You should have a small "stalk".

Push the legs of the LED bulb through the paper just off to the side of the stalk in your paper.

Now wrap one wire tightly around the first leg. Repeat with the other wire around the second leg.

Slide the legs of the LED onto the end of your clothespin, so one leg is on each side. Tape into place. Now tape your stalk to the other clothespin end. This is to help secure everything.

Wrap the wires around your clothespin, then separate the wires, and wrap them individually around each side as you get down to the clamping end of your clothespin. You want to end your wrap with the stripped part of your wire on the inside of the clothespin.

Now slide your battery into the clothespin so it makes contact with the wires. If it doesn't work, turn your battery around.

Your Flower Has Come To Life!

Finishing Your Circuit Flower

You can wrap the clothespin with green pipecleaners to finish it off so it looks nice. We found these adorable miniature red solo cups that made the perfect pots for our bouquets. You could also use real, miniature, clay pots.

To turn on your flowers, simply open the clothespin and insert the battery. To turn them off, remove the battery. Do not leave turned on for long periods of time. With a little care, your circuit creations can last a long time. My Circuit Bugs still light up even years after first creating them!

Even without the lights this bouquet is so beautiful!

But then turn on the lights and WOW!

Circuit Flowers are fantastic for Mother's Day, Spring STEM, a botanical unit study, girls in STEM and more. Happy circuit building!

THIS ACTIVITY IS PART OF THE 28 DAYS OF STEM AND STEAM ACTIVITIES PROMOTION. CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO FIND LOTS OF INSPIRING ACTIVITIES FOR YOUR CLASSROOM!

MORE FROM STEAM POWERED FAMILY

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How To Build A Circuit Flower - Circuits For Kids

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With the popularity of our Circuit Bugs STEM Activity it was time to come up with something new, something with a little extra art. Introducing Circuit Flowers! Explore chromatography, diffusion, engineering and circuit building with this hands on STEAM activity. Great for mothers' day, spring, girls in STEM, and more!

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So you know when you attempt an experiment and it completely and utterly fails? Yeah, so that happened. But we were able to turn it into a fantastic study about some scientific principles. In fact, it ended up being a much better lesson than if we hadn't messed up. Yeah for failures! Wonder which experiment? It was the very simple walking rainbow challenge. And I completely screwed it up.
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We are at the end of our school year. We've already had our end of year facilitator meeting and signed off on our learning objectives. Yeah for homeschooling! But, I still want to provide lots of learning opportunities for my kids. It's been so dreary here. Snow right up until May, cold and miserable. It feels like spring may never come. So I thought we would do a fun and easy challenge that would bring a little color to our homeschool. I chose the Walking Rainbow challenge which is usually featured as a preschool or early elementary activity.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Walking Rainbow STEAM Activity

Except I didn't really do any research or read up on the activity. I was winging it. This was PRESCHOOL level stuff. So easy!

I grabbed 6 mason jars, Set them up in a little circle. Added equal amounts of water to each one. Then the kids added red to the first one, skipped one, yellow, skip, blue, skip. We talked about what colours were in the rainbow and learned the ROY G BIV (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet) trick for remembering them.

Then we carefully folded up our paper towels, and placed them in our jars and waited for the magic to happen!

A few days later our colours had hit a major roadblock. Literally, they climbed up and stopped. We waited a whole week and other than the colours getting more intense on the one side, nothing else happened.

Walking Rainbow You Shall Not Pass!

It was as if Gandalf himself was standing there declaring: You shall not pass!!

Never one to give up, we sat down and studied what was happening. We knew the experiment was one about capillary action and the water travelling through the paper towels. We assumed, wrongly, that the colours would mix in the paper towels, and therefore mix in the various jars giving us our rainbow colours.

Instead the clear water and the coloured waters came up against each other and stopped. They didn't mix in the paper towels.

Interesting... very interesting...

So I went and actually read up on how other people were doing their walking rainbow experiments and realized the middle jars where we didn't add any food colouring, actually needed to be left empty. The mixing of the colours happens when the waters mix in the jars, not in the paper towels.

We set up again and watch and waited. In a couple of days we had our rainbow colours!

Nature's Balance

But we were curious, so we waited a whole week to see what would happen. We were rewarded with a wonderful demonstration of how the whole system brought itself into balance.

I talk to the kids a lot about the delicate balances in nature and this experiment provided the perfect visual representation.

See after a week the water levels in all the jars balanced and became even. Each jar had exactly the same amount of water.

I set out planning on just bringing a little colour to our homeschool room, but this activity provided so much more. The learning and understanding for my upper elementary kids went beyond a simple experiment and demonstrated something I want them to truly understand. Nature wants to be in balance. It will work hard to find that balance. We need to do our best not to mess with that balance.

Also? It really was a beautiful experiment. And those colours? Stunning!

MORE FROM STEAM POWERED FAMILY

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Walking Rainbow - You Shall Not Pass! Edition

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So you know when you attempt an experiment and it completely and utterly fails? Yeah, so that happened. But we were able to turn it into a fantastic study about some scientific principles. In fact, it ended up being a much better lesson than if we hadn't messed up.

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Kids construct boats made of any material they want, then have races! See which materials hold up best and travel fastest.

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Paint (with water) using gravity and physics

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Introducing a fantastic resource for any classroom or home, STEAM KIDS! With over 50 engaging projects to try with your children, you will want this book on your shelf!

Working in the Early Childhood Education sector, many of the hands on activities we plan already incorporate STEAM. Education experts are telling us that to help prepare our children to be the successful innovators they need to be to be part of our 21st century workforce, they need to be actively engaged in their own learning and have plenty of opportunities to engage in subjects such as Having fun is, of course, a large part of ensuring they are engaged in such learning so I am very excited by the launch of
What is STEAM and why is it important to how I teach young children today?

Science, Technology, Engineering, STEAM Kids! An inspiring new book with over 50 STEAM projects to try at home or in the classroom. Art and Math (STEAM) to succeed.

STEAM Kids is a book that will inspire children to:

"Question like a scientist, design like a technologist, build like an engineer, create like an artist, deduce like a mathematician - and, most importantly - play like a kid."

STEAM Kids is a beautifully designed, easy to follow book full of activities that are each broken down into easy doable steps to follow with a colour coded system to see which STEAM area is being covered with each project.

STEAM Kids brings fun to learning. Written by a mix of award winning educators, a MIT engineer, graphic designers and homeschooling experts, STEAM Kids is written mostly for children aged 4 to 10 but can easily be adapted to younger or older children.

We took the Pendulum Painting activity from the book and adapted it, making it bigger by taking it outside and more sustainable by using water as our paint.

Originally we were going to use sand to 'paint' but found that it didn't move quickly enough through the hole in our container to leave a steady pattern as it swung so we brainstormed what else we could use then decided on water.

We suspended our pendulum from our carport roof which is quite large so we could easily move to another part of the carport when we needed a fresh canvas.

The kids were thoroughly engaged and excited to see the patterns appear. They loved experimented to see how they could create different patterns depending on how they swung the pendulum.

The instructions to make a pendulum can be found in the STEAM Kids book. We used made ours in winter but it would be the perfect activity for summer!

STEAM Kids is available to purchase either as an eBook or in print from Amazon.

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Introducing a fantastic resource for any classroom or home, STEAM KIDS! With over 50 engaging projects to try with your children, you will want this book on your shelf! Working in the Early Childhood Education sector, many of the hands on activities we plan already incorporate STEAM.

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Creating an ice cube igloo is a wonderful STEM project that gives kids practice in science, math, engineering, physics, fine motor skills, and patience! It is loads of fun for groups and/or individuals!

Igloos fit in perfectly with our Arctic theme this month, but you could also build them when you talk about winter, polar regions, or states of matter!

To make your own igloo, you need the following

* something to build on (we used a plate)

1- Make an icy "glue" to hold the ice cubes together by blending up about two cups of ice. Add just enough water so that the ice is soft and moldable, but not liquid. I "cut" the water in with a fork. It should hold it's shape (or a snowball shape!) easily when you squeeze it together. When I was a kid living in Utah, we used to call this "slush," so as we built we talked about our "slushy" mixture!

2- Arrange the ice in your igloo shape around a plate or on another building surface.

3- Fill in the gaps between the ice with slushy!

4- Sprinkle salt on top of the ice cubes to encourage them to melt the tiniest bit. The melted water will freeze to any ice that touches it. Add another layer of ice and slushy. My kids were fascinated by the way the ice cubes stuck together and how the slushy could change its shape as you molded it and then re-freeze. I should add that we live in Houston, so my kids have had a lot less experience with ice and snow than some!

5- Put it in the freezer to harden. Then repeat steps 2-5 until your igloo is as tall as you want it. Check out my video to "watch" ours grow! (If it doesn't load, you can watch it here.)

Working with the slushy and the ice and designing the igloo takes a lot of experimenting and trial and error. Often, our kiddo would slap a piece of ice or slushy onto the igloo only to watch it break and fall off. This is okay! Let them engineer the perfect igloo! They will figure out how much pressure is okay and how much is too much, and will love their igloo even more.

6- Use slushy to form the top of the igloo. Also add slushy to the sides to make it air-tight and stronger!

7- Ta da! Your igloo is done! We took about two days to build ours and just did each step in between other lessons and activities, letting it freeze while we were busy. My kids pointed out that a real igloo built in the arctic would have re-frozen as they were building it. They were also very impressed with the amount of work it would have taken someone to build a life-size igloo, as our 14-inch tall igloo took quite a bit of care and effort!

You can play with your igloo, show it off, or just store it in the freezer for a while! We had some arctic animals move in!

Your kids can also experiment with the ice and slushy to make different ice sculptures and creations!

My son continued to grind snow, make ice, and experiment & play with it for two days after we finished!

I loved how the entire project modeled a real-life solution to a problem (housing in the artic), and gave our kiddos experience with the cold ice and snow while staying in a nice warm environment. And, of course, we talked about how people living in the arctic now do not usually make igloos. It was still a fun connection to the past and to an environment different than theirs!

Would you make an igloo with your kiddos? I'd love to see it! Feel free to leave a comment, send me an email, or say 'Hi' on Facebook!

You will also love these science activities from the STEM Saturday bloggers:

I may share at any of these parties!

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Creating an ice cube igloo is a wonderful STEM project that gives kids practice in science, math, engineering, physics, fine motor skills, and patience! It is loads of fun for groups and/or individuals! Igloos fit in perfectly with our Arctic theme this month, but you could also build them when you talk about winter, polar regions, or states of matter!

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What grows in a puddle?

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Use prisms to create rainbows from sunlight