12 Kindergarten STEM Activities for the Whole Year!
Incorporating science, technology, engineering, and math activities into the kindergarten curriculum may seem like a tall order. However, with a few creative kid-approved activities, you and your students will be eager to incorporate STEM activities into your everyday learning. Kindergarten STEM activities give you the perfect opportunity to have your students practice their fine motor skills, critical thinking strategies, and collaboration skills. Here are a few super fun activities to get you started on your kindergarten STEM journey.
The Importance of Kindergarten STEM Projects
STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. STEM projects require students to use skills from all of these areas to solve problems and complete tasks.
In addition to the academic skills in these areas, here are just a few of the other important life skills students will work on with STEM activities:
- Creativity
- Communication
- Problem Solving
- Critical Analysis
- Collaboration
- Inquiry
12 Kindergarten STEM Activities for the Whole Year
You can maximize the benefits of STEM activities you can incorporate them into your lesson plans all year long! These seasonal activities are a great addition to your daily learning routine, beginning in the fall and continuing through the spring.
1. Build an Apple Tower
The STEM fun can start at the beginning of the school year with this apple-themed STEM activity. Students will try to build the tallest tower possible by using just apples and play dough. This is a great way for students to practice their problem-solving skills!
2. Fill an Apple
Another apple-themed STEM activity is this challenge where students see how many paper squares they can fit inside an apple. Students can use a combination of small and large paper squares to fill in the outline of an apple. This could be a fun activity to send home as a family project at the beginning of the school year!
3. Build a Fall Item
Your students can also explore their engineering skills by designing and building a fall item. Students can use building blocks to create their choice of a pumpkin, an apple, or any other object commonly associated with fall. This is a great way for students to practice their fine motor skillsm, which is so important at the beginning of the school year!
4. Paint Fall Leaves
Students can explore color mixing as they use colored ice cubes to color leaves cut from coffee filters. Students will use red, yellow, and blue ice cubes to mix fall colors for their leaves. After they have created their leaves, they can share their results on a recording sheet.
5. Build a Pine Tree
Moving into the winter months, students can use a variety of materials to build a pine tree. Students can use pipe cleaners, felt, and clothespins to create a two-dimensional or three-dimensional structure. This activity is another great way to help students practice fine motor skills.
6. Salt and Ice
As the weather gets colder, students can practice hypothesizing as they complete this salt and ice experiment. To test their hypothesis, they can watch what happens to an ice cube after adding salt and compare it to an ice cube with no salt added.
7. Snowflake Symmetry
Your students will love exploring symmetry as they complete this snowflake art project! Students can sketch part of a snowflake on one half of the paper. After adding a matching part to the other half, students will make textured snowflakes with paint, glue, and salt.
8. Build a Marshmallow Snowman
Another fun STEM activity for winter is a snowman building challenge! Students can use toothpicks and marshmallows to construct a snowman and then use snap cubes to measure them. This is a great opportunity to practice nonstandard measurement!
9. Capillary Action Carnations
As the spring flowers begin to blossom outside, you can bring some flower fun into the classroom! Students can create colorful carnations as they explore capillary action. First, they can explore color mixing by creating colorful water. Then, they can watch what happens when they put white carnation stems into the water.
10. Chemical Reactions
Another fun spring STEM activity is this chemical reaction exploration. Students can use a hollowed-out watermelon as a vessel for a chemical reaction using baking soda and vinegar. They can then draw their observations on a recording sheet.
11. Dissolving Candy
You can also include spring candy like jellybeans in your classroom STEM challenges! In this activity, students will guess which clear liquid will cause the candy coating to dissolve the fastest. Each student can record their hypothesis before adding a jellybean to each liquid. Then they can record the changes at different intervals of time.
12. Rainbow Tunnel
A final STEM activity for spring is this fun challenge where students build a rainbow tunnel. Students will use colorful strips of paper to assemble a tunnel that will help a ball move from a starting line to a finish line about two feet away. This activity requires a lot of problem-solving as they use trial and error to build a rainbow tunnel.
Bundle of STEM Challenges for Kindergarten
All of the STEM activities that I’ve mentioned in this post are included in one bundle of seasonal STEM challenges and activities. You can use this resource to save loads of planning on your STEM activities throughout the school year. This bundle includes supply lists, detailed instructions, and parent letters that you can use to save time on your STEM challenge planning.
Whether you’re having a STEM day every few months or you are incorporating STEM activities into your learning stations, I know that you and your students will love these hands-on and engaging activities! If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this bundle, you can click below to find it in my shop.
STEM Challenges and Activities | Full Year BUNDLE
Save These Kindergarten STEM Activities
Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite kindergarten board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these ideas when you’re planning STEM projects for your kindergarten class.
