STEM Resources

STEM Seasonal Challenges for grades 2-5 provides a fun way to enhance STEM learning in the classroom. This boxed set includes 30 challenge cards—each card is seasonally- or holiday-themed. Designed to capture a student's attention, challenges are diverse, simple, and easy to complete and include these fun activities: creating pumpkin catapults, making elf zip lines, designing pool floatation devices, and more!

Help students go full STEAM ahead with festive grab-and-go activities! Seasonal STEM Challenges offers an engaging way to get students interested in science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Each challenge card features two sides—the front side includes the challenge and a visual list of materials needed to complete the challenge. The back of the card is ideal for extended learning and includes hints, questions, and explanations of the science behind the challenge. Each activity uses common materials and can be completed individually or during whole-class instruction.

STEM Challenges helps teachers integrate STEM into the classroom by providing hands-on activities that appeal to students. Because of the child-friendly text and the visual materials lists, these easy, but fun, activities can be completed independently, in small groups, or as a whole-class activity. The activities require common materials so students or teachers can "grab and go!” Don't forget to check out the STEM Challenges set for more fun ways to learn STEM.

Students can design and build an endless variety of structures, from skyscrapers to submarines, dinosaurs to storybook characters using the kit's multi-use planks, rotating pieces and connecting hubs. 320 pieces.

The magic of gravity pushes the spheres through the Geomag gravity motor spiral. A magical and eco-friendly system that uses the invisible forces of attraction and repulsion to set in motion the models. Starting at the base of the system, the weight of the spheres creates a never-ending spiral that kickstarts a real gravity motor. This set contains 11 magnetic rods, 32 spheres and 126 plastic mechanical elements. Gravity is the innovative evolution of the Geomag mechanics line. Developed with expert players in mind, the new construction system is based on an innovative "gravity motor": this uses the weight of the Geomag spheres to Kickstart the mechanisms and movements of the Geomag mechanics structures. The motion is provided by the invisible forces of gravity and magnetism, without using electricity or batteries. The play experience is based on these fundamental principles of physics. Mechanics gravity is a STEM product that can truly stimulate curiosity and inspire to learn more about science.

• Revolutionary cubes create endless paths and possibilities
• Precision joints provide exceptional stability
• Smooth cubes slide together with ease
• A challenging exercise for both sides of your brain
• Marbles are nickel plated steel balls. They are not magnets.

Science, technology, engineering, art, and math work together to make learning fun in these STEAM lessons!

Perfect for Makerspace!

This kindergarten teacher resource book includes:

• A year's worth of teacher lesson plans
• STEAM design challenges that turn elementary students into inventors
• Easy-to-follow lesson format (with standards identified for each lesson)
• Classroom-tested lessons

The STEAM Design Challenges in this book follow engineering practices to teach students in kindergarten to solve a problem by designing, creating, and justifying their designs. They also allow art to support and enhance the learning of science and math while the engineering process is followed.

These engaging STEAM lessons:

• Integrate the Next Generation Science Standards and national standards from other disciplines
• Enhance learning across various disciplines
• Facilitate students in collaborating to solve real-world scenarios
• Promote critical thinking, analytical thinking, and reflective thinking
• Incorporate the Five Es Instructional Model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate)
• Are classroom tested

Engineering Design Process
The lessons in this book are intended to support the engineering design process in which teachers become a facilitator by encouraging and guiding students to work as a team to find a creative solution to a real-world problem without providing step-by-step instructions. Students are inspired to act as scientists and engineers through the use of sketches, diagrams, mathematical relationships, and literacy connections. By creating their very own models and products based on background information from their studies, students are immediately engaged through a meaningful, rewarding lesson.

More about the lessons
Each lesson begins by presenting students with a design challenge scenario in order to immediately excite students with a real-world situation that they are on a mission to solve. Students are then given a dilemma, mission, and blueprint design sheet and are asked to collaborate with team members to create several prototypes. Students present their prototypes to their teacher, construct their design, test their design, engage in a class discussion about their design, and then modify their design. Finally, teams create a justification piece in order to sell their new prototype (ex. persuasive letter, video, advertisement etc.).

About the Authors
The Steam Dreamers, a group of four classroom teachers, desired to create more interactive learning environments and science classrooms through student-centered problem-solving lessons. They created this collection of cross-curricular design challenge lessons to provide teachers and students with real-world scenarios that are driven by core learning standards and enriched through the inclusion of literacy and the arts.