STEAM Activities with Everyday Supplies
How to use: Your child is a natural “engineer,” with amazing ideas about how to make things and build. Read through the directions. Use whatever supplies you have on hand. Make changes or substitutions to the list of supplies. Talk with your child about the project. Have your child create the model, also called a prototype. It doesn’t have to be exactly like the suggested creation. Let your child decide how to make the gadget or gizmo. Take a picture or video showcasing what your child has made!
Engineering with Kids
When creating STEAM projects, it helps to use some tried and true steps. Watch the video below to understand how inventions and products often are designed and made. Share these easy steps with your child. They can be done in any order and parts of the process are used again and again until a solution is done and “communicated” to the world, or just your family and friends.
Watch this 3 and half minutes long video.
Click on the image or click here to begin.
Asking Questions
Encourage your child to do the “hard work” of thinking things through while you guide him/her with questions and statements. Try NOT to give your child any answers.
Go to responses: “What do you think?” “Why do you think that happened?” “What did you see that makes you think that?”
More questions or statements to guide your child’s learning without just telling the answers:
Why do you think that?
So you think that…? (Tell me more.)
How did you do that?
How did you know that?
How did you get that?
What did you notice?
Try it and see what happens...
Can you be more specific?
Can you give an example?
What is your evidence?
Tell me what you mean when you said…
Can you explain more about that?
What’s another way you might…?
What is the connection between a and b?
How did you decide/come to that conclusion?
Could you repeat that? (repeat/explain in another way?)
Can you repeat that but simpler?
All Ages
Helpful Example! Good model for how to use these kinds of resources.
Description: Make and test an easy to build parachute with a plastic grocery store bag or trash bag and any small plastic cup. Behind the project science concepts included! Great for investigating outside.
Getting started: Read the directions all the way through. Gather supplies. If you don’t have a hole punch, carefully poke holes with the scissors. Let your child figure things out on his/her own. Talk about the science that is happening as it happens. Let your child share what he/she thinks and sees. Try to guide your child to understand, not tell “answers.”
Description: Hands-on science using standard household materials and some special supplies. Lots of activity collections for all ages including health models, mini engineering projects, science investigations and chemistry in the kitchen.
Getting Started: Look through the many choices. Check for age appropriateness and access to supplies.
Description: Create whimsical moving machines or contraptions from everyday supplies from around the house. Rube Goldberg was a mining engineer turned cartoonist. He drew amazing complex machines to do ordinary tasks.
Getting started: Gather flat cardboard and tubes, building toys and balls, other parts from the kitchen or from around the house. Pick a simple goal, like landing a small ball or marble into a cup. Sketch out a plan to start with. Make LOTS of changes. Take a look at lots of great video ideas on YOuTube. Keep trying until your Rube Goldberg Machine works at least once! Be sure to take pictures and videos during the creating and at the end when you try it out for a hoped for success.
More Rube Goldberg Resources
Rube Goldberg's Simple Normal Humdrum School Day - by Jennifer George YouTube Read Aloud 5:04
Add in some simple math predictions!
Watch Audri's Monster Trap YouTube 4:17 and use his ideas of predictions and actual fails and successes. (Note: your child will likely have many more “fails” than successes. This is okay! Persevering is an important part of creating any projects.)
Description: Awesome and creative ideas for making cool projects and science models including making our living environments better (green), electricity, simple machines, force/motion, structures, sports/games, space/transportation, sound/music and more. Most projects use supplies found around the house, but some need special parts.
Getting started: Use the menu on the left to check out the projects under each topic. Download the pdf directions. Skim the supplies list and directions. With your child, choose 3 or 4 that look fun and interesting. Then pick one to start with. Don’t forget to scroll down to check out the careers and videos.
Description: Downloadable hands-on activity cards using standard household materials to demonstrate science ideas.
Getting Started: Download the challenge cards or print them out. Skim through the amazing choices and set aside 4 or 5. Gather supplies. Have your child pick which ones to try first.
Getting started: Go to the 77 Simple STEM Activities site first. Download one of the lists of mini STEM ideas. Skim through and start choosing the ones your family would like to do. Set some goals, for example try to complete at least two each day for a week. Don’t forget to download and read the STEM “newspapers!” Catch up by reading one together every other day. There are more mini project challenges and mind challenges.
Newspaper with articles and challenges
Description: STEM for every student, every classroom, everyday Everyday STEM activities and podcasts. FREE one page weekly “newspaper” to help inspire kids to engage with STEM in the real world. Each issue can be printed or shared digitally with the kids you know. Literacy & STEM…better together!
PreK - Elementary
Left Brain Craft Brain: DIY Recycled Suspension Bridge
Description: Not just the normal build-a-bridge challenge. Design and create a suspension bridge using recyclables from home!
Getting started: Gather supplies. A ruler would be helpful for this project. Don’t forget some toy cars or trucks. Remember, it’s okay to make substitutes: any masking/painters tape, any twine or string, rubber bands should be close to the same size. A hole punch helps, but carefully poking holes with scissors or an awl works well. See how many cars and trucks your suspension bridge can hold.
Description: Art projects that are sorted alphabetically. Delightful projects include: paper airplane designs, many animal models (including insects, bugs and sea life), bee models with the mystreious population decline, Earth globe models, Earth Day is Everyday projects, magnet games and projects, mosaic art projects to show what is being learned in science, social studies or reading, optical illusions and silhoettes with how the eye works, spacecraft designs and inventing games and toys!
Getting started: Read through the projects and supply list. Choose a few ideas that your child might enjoy. Take the basic design and add your own creativitive ideas! Think about ways some of these projects could go along with what your child is learning in science, social studies, math and reading.
Description: Open ended projects that encourage your child to pick any project under the general heading. These include “Something that Moves,” Something Useful,” “Something to Entertain,” and “Something to Explore.” These types of challenges are often parts of STEM Summer Camps.
Getting started: Read each section together with your child. Have him/her brainstorm some ideas, as interested, as you go. Choose one or two. Add more brainstorming ideas and quick drawings/sketches. Make a final decision for first project. Help your child use the Engineering Design Process to work from beginning to end.
Note: See these amazing cardboard connectors.
Example idea:
Caine’s Arcade YouTube 10:58
Yes, your child can create their own arcade style games to entertain!
For more information see Exploratorium’s The Tinker Studio Cardboard Night