Tag: science experiments

Math, STEM, Winter

Winter-Themed STEM Activities

Jennifer

Looking for fun ways to incorporate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) into your child’s play, try these fun winter-themed STEM activities! These activities use common household supplies, so you should have most, if not all, of the supplies on hand.

Five Winter-Themed STEM Activities:

Make your own fake snow science experiment

1. Make your own fake snow 

Make fake snow in the warmth of your home by combing shaving cream and baking soda! This science experiment is “snow” much fun to make. Your preschooler will love playing with their fake snow.

"Falling Snowflake STEM Activity" image of hands holding string that paper snowflakes slides down on.

2. Falling Snowflake STEM Craft

Looking for a quick and easy STEM activity to add to your winter lesson plans? Try this falling snowflake STEM activity! This activity is easy to throw together, but a great way to teach about gravity (Science), and inline planes (Engineering). You’ll need a straw, ribbon, and paper.

Winter cup stacking activity for toddlers and preschoolers

3. Winter Cup Stacking

Give your child some snowflake stickers and let them decorate plastic cups. Then they can have fun stacking the cups, and of course, knocking them down too!

Fizzing winter-themed science experiment

4. Winter Fizz

Combine blue glitter, baking soda, and vinegar to create a wintry-looking fizzy science experiment! Fizzing experiments are always a favorite in our family.

sample of winter-themed preschool math worksheets

5. Winter Theme Math Worksheets

Included in this free, printable PDF packet are 6 math worksheets that focus on numbers 1-10, numerical order, and counting.

Winter Themed Math Worksheets (1)Download
STEM, Winter

Make Fake Snow!

Jennifer

Whether you were wishing you had snow to play in, or are stuck inside because it is too cold out, make some fake snow that won’t freeze your fingers! All you need are two ingredients–baking soda and shaving cream–to make your own snow. The fake snow feels so soft and flakey. It is is tons of fun to squish in your fingers! Add some of your toys so they can have a snow day too. Fake snow is a fun way to add STEM into your preschooler’s activities. Check out my STEM Page for more ideas!

fake snow preschool STEM
Fake Snow Preschool STEM Activity

Fake Snow Supplies Needed:

supplies: shaving cream making soda, foil tray, and measuring cup
  • baking soda
  • shaving cream
  • measuring cup
  • tray or bowl to mix ingredients in (we used a 8×8 inch foil tray)

I love STEM activities that my son and I can do with supplies we already have at home! If you don’t have any shaving cream, another mom said you can use hair conditioner.

How To:

We tried this a couple times before we “perfected” our fake snow. In order to make enough to actually play with, we used 1 Cup baking soda and a little more than 1 Cup of shaving cream. Begin by measuring your baking soda and then dumping it into your tray/bowl. Then measure your shaving cream and dump it on top of your baking soda.

Now for the fun! Use your hands to combine the shaving cream and the baking soda until it forms snow. Add some extra shaving cream if needed to get the texture you like. Want to see this in action? check out our 4 1/2 minute video: How To Make Fake Snow

We had lots of fun just squishing our snow around the tray. My son added a plastic Olaf toy and let Olaf have fun playing in the snow too. Soon my son’s imagination went wild and he pretended that his hands were yetis after Olaf. Warning — snow got all over the table and some ended up on the floor as my son played. Fortunately it was easy to clean up with a wet paper towel.

making fake snow
Playing with our fake snow

More Snow and Winter Ideas!

Winter Fizz STEM Activity: combine blue glitter, baking soda, vinegar to create a wintry-looking fizzy science experiment!

Frozen-Inspired Windsock: create a sparkly snowflake windsock inspired by the movie Frozen!

Fingerprint Snowy Tree: draw a barren tree with a marker and then your preschooler can paint on the snow with their fingerprints.

Craft Stick Snowflake: add some sparkly winter fun to your seasonal decorations with this cute craft stick snowflake!

Snowman Books: Building a snowman is one of our favorite winter things to do as a family. However, even without snow, you can have some snowman fun with these 8 snowman books.

STEM

Gummy Bear STEM Experiment

Jennifer

Let’s find out if gummy bear candy grows larger in water with this fun (and yummy) gummy bear experiment. In this experiment, we will see if gummy bears grow in plain water, or in salt water, or not at all. What do you think will happen?

Gummy Bear Experiment
Gummy Bear Experiment

Supplies Needed:

gummy bear STEM experiment supplies
supplies
  • gummy bear candies
  • 2 glasses
  • water
  • table salt
  • ruler (optional)
  • pencil/pen
  • piece of paper

How To:

Pick 2 different colored gummy bears for this experiment. We picked 1 green one and 1 red gummy bear.

stir the salt

Fill both glasses with enough water to completely cover the gummy bears (and leave some room to grow). We added 3/4 Cup water to each glass. In one of the glasses, add one tablespoon of salt. Stir the salt so that it mixes with the water. Leave the water in the other glass plain.

Drop one gummy bear into each glass. Write down which color gummy bear is the salt water and which color gummy bear is in the plain water.

Ask your child what they think will happen to the gummy bears. Will one or both of them grow? My son guessed that the salt would make the red gummy bear shrink and that the green gummy bear would grow in the plain water.

Wait about 4 hours before taking your gummy bears out of the water. BE CAREFUL when removing them as they can easily fall apart. I fished them out with the tablespoon and carefully wiggled them off the spoon onto the table so that we could measure them.

gummy bear experiment results
Experiment results

DO NOT EAT THE GUMMY BEARS FROM THE EXPERIMENT!

RESULTS: One of our gummy bears was larger than the other! Drumroll please. . . the green gummy grew a lot in the plain water and the red gummy bear grew a little bit larger in the salt water. We placed fresh gummy bears from the bag next to the experiment ones for a comparison. OPTIONAL — To introduce rulers and measuring to my son, we did hold up the ruler next to the gummy bears from the bag and the ones from the experiment for him to see the difference in measurements.

More STEM Activities:

Incorporate more STEM activities into your little one’s learning with more fun activities. Check out my STEM Page for more ideas and experiments to try together: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/stem/

Christmas, STEM, Winter

Christmas Fizz STEM Activity

Jennifer

 Looking to incorporate more STEM education into your preschooler’s activities? Then try this fun Christmas fizz preschool STEM activity! To make this Christmas themed, we used red and green food coloring and we added red and green glitter for sparkly fun. We had a blast watching it bubble up and we loved seeing the red and green glitter sparkle in the bubbles! Play some Christmas music in the background and enjoy this holiday STEM activity together.

Christmas Fizz S.T.E.M. Activity

CHRISTMAS FIZZ

Supplies Needed:

Fizz STEM activity supplies
supplies for Christmas Fizz STEM Activity
  • bowl or foil tray 
  • 1 box of baking soda 
  • red and green glitter
  • white vinegar
  • 2 paint cups ( we reused plastic fruit cups)
  • red and green food coloring
  • Teaspoon (for spooning the vinegar into the tray) or eyedroppers/pipettes

Prepare the Tray:

  • Pour baking soda inside the tray so that the entire bottom is covered
  • Sprinkle the red and green glitter around the tray on top of the baking soda
add baking soda and glitter to tray to make the FIZZ
add baking soda and glitter

Prepare the Paint Cups:

  • pour vinegar in each cup
  • add a drop of red food coloring to one cup and a drop of green food coloring to the other cup
  • stir the food coloring until it is well mixed with the vinegar

Making the Christmas Fizz

add some vinegar to the baking soda
Christmas Fizz
Christmas Fizz STEM activity
Christmas Fizz
  • To make the fizz, spoon some of the colored vinegar into the tray. Watch as the vinegar bubbles up when it touches the baking soda! The glitter looks awesome as the bubbles rise up 🙂
  • Keep spooning vinegar* into the tray until all of the baking soda is covered in red and green.

*the larger amount of vinegar that you dump into the tray at a time, the larger your fizz will be!

We love making fizz and incorporating it into our learning themes! We’ve made superhero fizz, rainbow fizz, pumpkin fizz, and winter fizz too! Just change the food coloring colors and use different glitter to make any kind of fizz you want 🙂

Check out more fun STEM activities: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/stem/

STEM

Superhero Fizz STEM Activity

Jennifer

Superhero Fizz STEM activitiy
Superhero Fizz STEM Activity

Looking to incorporate more STEM education into your preschooler’s activities? Then try this fun superhero fizz STEM activity!

My son is really into superheroes right now, especially Captain America. So for our science experiment, we decided to make Superhero Fizz! It was so much fun that we repeated it the next night too. To make it Captain America-themed, we used red and blue food coloring and silver glitter. The glitter looked awesome as the mixture fizzed up!

Supplies Needed:

  • bowl or foil tray (we used a brownie-sized foil baking tray)
  • 1 box of baking soda 
  • glitter
  • white vinegar
  • paint cups ( we reused plastic fruit cups)
  • food coloring
  • measuring spoons (for spooning the vinegar into the tray) or eyedroppers/pipettes

Prepare the Tray:

  • Sprinkle baking soda all over the bottom of the tray so that the entire bottom is covered
  • Sprinkle glitter on top of the baking soda

Prepare the Paint Cups:

  • pour in vinegar
  • then add a couple of drops of food coloring
  • stir the food coloring

Making the Superhero Fizz

  • To make the superhero fizz, spoon some of the colored vinegar into the tray. Watch the vinegar bubble up when it touches the baking soda! The sparkle from the glitter adds to the fun as the baking soda-vinegar mixture fizzes up and the light hits the glitter.

  • Rotate adding the colors to the tray until all of the baking soda is covered in the colored vinegar.

*the larger amount of vinegar that you dump into the tray at a time, the larger you fizz will be 🙂

Superhero Fizz — Preschool STEM Activity
Superhero Fizz — Preschool STEM Activity

Modify This STEM Activity for Other Themes:

This activity can be modified to fit any theme by changing the colors of the food coloring and using different colored glitter. Try unicorn fizz, or mermaid fizz, or rainbow fizz!

Check out my STEM page for more fun ideas: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/stem/