Young children love to learn about the five senses and the sense of touch is a favorite. I can remember using a mystery box when I was in preschool. It was one of the my favorite activities! So I reached into my box of trash treasure to find the materials to create a new tactile mystery box for my own kids. [Read more…]
15 Ways to Inspire Outdoor Play
What Are Your Kids Doing This Summer?
As a child, summertime was a magical time. We went outside early in the morning and didn’t come back inside until dinner. I want my kids to experience that same magical, summertime outdoor play… Easier said, than done. [Read more…]
The Three Little Pigs: STEM
Three Little Pigs STEM Activity
Bring “The Three Little Pigs” to life with this fun STEM activity. Kids will love exploring the science in the story, by interacting with weight and the power of wind. Quick and easy prep + age appropriate science experiments. Hands-on fun with “Three Little Pigs STEM”!
I’ve had this post floating around in my head for a long time! I have always loved fairy tales. They are just magical. I love the absurdity and whimsy. One of my favorites is “The Three Little Pigs”. There are so many versions of this story and it’s great fun to read them all. This post shows how we brought “The Three Little Pigs” to life and combined the story with science and math!
Last summer, my kids and some of their friends wanted to make a movie. At the time, I was preparing to present at a preschool conference and had all my fairy tale fun spread out in the craft room. The kids saw the three little pigs and the wolf and inspiration hit! They wanted to bring “The Three Little Pigs” to life.
I collected a bunch of milk cartons to make the little pig’s houses, so the kids got busy creating. All the houses were very easy to make. We glued pieces of straw to the straw house, we actually used brown paper cut like sticks (you can substitute real sticks) for the stick house, and scrapbook paper that looked like bricks for the house of bricks.
The houses were really cute, but I wanted to bring in science. We talked about the various materials and the weight of each material. The kids went outside to collect straw (we used grass), sticks, and bricks (stones). We brought all the materials inside. They filled up each house with the same type of materials. Then, we compared the different weights by placing them on the scale.
After we had all of our houses ready, we broke out the very adorable Three Little Pig’s set from Melissa and Doug. They matched the pigs to the houses and got busy working on their script!
I forgot to mention the best part of this activity! Break out your hair dryer. It makes the reenactment irresistible. I velcroed the Big Bad Wolf to the top of my hair dryer. Then, he can actually “blow” down the houses.
So. Much. Fun.
They did end up making their video, but before that we had a great time blowing down the different houses. The straw house was out of there in an instant!
The stick house took a little more effort.
And the brick house could not be blown down! It was great for discussing the strength and impact of wind on different types of structures. We ended up discussing tornadoes and how they can impact our world.
We had a great time engaging with the fairy tale, looking at the science behind it, and creating our own movie!
It was a really fun activity and I can see parts of it enhancing a unit on the “Three Little Pigs”. It’s always great to bring STEM into a unit of study on fairy tales, the whimsy of the stories enhances the science and math exploration. It’s sure to draw in all of your little learners.
I am in the process of creating a “Grab & GO” set on fairy tales. They are great for writing centers, word walls, use in large group writing activities, identifying and categorizing thematic words, comparing and contrasting elements of fairy tales, and so much more!
This set isn’t quite done, but you can see all my other Grab & Go sets here! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you found some fun ideas to use with your kids, too!
Pumpkin Mania!
I love fall! The crispness in the air, the pumpkin patches, and cozy scarves. I especially love watching your children explore the wonder of pumpkins.
In our house, baking soda and vinegar/lemon juice reactions are a huge draw. The kids can NEVER get enough of the fizzing and exploding. They love watching the differences in the reactions, as well, as playing in the goop. I decided to add the wonder of fizz to the fun of pumpkins. Such a hit!
We started out by mixing baking soda, food coloring, and a little bit of water in a bowl.
We mixed until the consistency was firm and packed like a snowball. This one needed a little more baking soda. Notice that it is pretty watery.
We just kept adding baking soda, until we had the perfect pumpkins. We made a batch of orange baking soda and green baking soda to make our pumpkin patch.
The kids had a ball shaping their pumpkins. They used so much great mathematical and scientific language, while creating the pumpkins. We discussed liquids, solids, larger, smaller, taller, shorter, and so much more. It provides a gold mine of language opportunities.
We created our pumpkin patch in our homemade sensory table. This is an awesome, portable table that is easy to transport and to store when not in use. You can see the directions here.
The kids also talked about the life cycle of pumpkins. You can see that they created pumpkins that are still green. We were able to talk about how the pumpkins progress, as they grow.
Next, we got out the vinegar and lemon juice. I had some fun ketchup and mustard squirters, so we filled them up with the liquid. Yellow was lemon juice and red was vinegar.
Here is a reaction to the lemon juice. The kids loved describing the bubbles that were produced. You could definitely create a Venn diagram to chart the differences and similarities in the two reactions.
Here is a reaction to the vinegar.
As the exploration went on, they poured larger amounts of the liquids on the pumpkins to see a larger reaction.
Here they are pouring vinegar through a funnel into the middle of the pumpkin.
I provided a variety of tools and the kids came up with their own experiments. Ones that I had not even thought of trying.
This made for a huge set of bubbles and the fizzing even came back up through the funnel.
I would definitely recommend trying your own pumpkin patch fizz! Every step of this activity was enjoyable and created so many opportunities for cross-curriculum exploration. I have so many ideas for the next time that we try this experiment!!
Even better is all the sensory fun!
We also tried played with my Pumpkins Interactive Play Dough Mats. Great for differentiating needs in math! Get your copy here.
We used the play dough mats in a variety of ways. They used play dough to form the numeral and create pumpkins to match the same number on the mat.
Here, we used pumpkin manipulatives and dry erase markers to do the same thing. The student drew ten circles on the mat and then covered each with a pumpkin manipulative. It allowed her to use one-to-one correspondence to match the numeral 10.
There are cards included in the pack that have numerals, addition sentences, and ten frames. Here, the student drew a card and represented the addition sentence with two colored sets of pumpkins. Then, they used a dry erase marker to record the answer on the mat. I use this as a partner game. One partner draws a card and represents the equation or number of objects. The other partner double checks their work. Then, they switch.
Here are a few of the fun printables that are included in this pack. Students will read the numeral and draw the appropriate number of pumpkins on the hay stack.
There are a bunch of differentiated worksheets that allow students to trace and fill in the numbers 1-10, depending on their ability.
In “Hit The Hay”, students count the pumpkins on the hay bales and write the matching numeral in the box.
Look for more pumpkin activities in the next few days!! I have some amazing games from Crayons, Cuties & Kindergarten that I can’t wait to share!!
