Welcome to STEM at Home.
Here you’ll find a growing set of simple activities to support children from Early Years to Year 6 in exploring STEM subjects during the schools shutdown.
Each of the activities below has been carefully put together so they are easy for you (parents) to do with your child, whether you have ten minutes to spare or half an hour. From toddlers up, there’ll be some part of each activity you can do.
The activities are simple and fun. Don’t worry about trying to be a science teacher – just join in the activity with your child and ask questions as you go!
Educators: we wrote a blog post about our methodology, setting out the principles we think are important.
Our STEM at Home Activities
Seed bombs
This simple activity describes how to create a seed bomb to plant wild flowers.
Bug hotel
Use this simple activity to create a bug hotel which will attract bugs to your garden using materials from your local environment.
Ice Rescue
Challenge your family to rescue something or someone trapped in the ice!
Journey Stick
Make a journey stick to remember a walk and talk about it later on.
Fruit chew rock cycle
Use chewy sweets to create sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks.
Investigating static electricity
Make things you will find around your home move without touching them! All you need for these static electricity investigations are a balloon, some paper or a can, a straw and a running tap.
Make a catapult
Make this simple catapult to fire paper balls, mini marshmallows or pom poms using just some lolly sticks and elastic bands.
Make a tonoscope
Do you want to see the sound waves from your voice? Make this tonoscope using a tube, plastic bag, some sugar or salt and a straw.
Make a magnet maze
Do you want to move an object around a maze without touching it? All you need is a magnet, a magnetic paper clip or washer, a piece of card or a paper plate and your imagination!
Make a fossil
Find out how real fossils are formed by fossilising your own toy or object using plaster of Paris or flour.
Marble run
Have you ever tried to make your own marble run? Using just cardboard, tape, a flat surface and a marble, you can be as imaginative and creative as you want!
Impact craters
Ever wondered how those holes in the moon got there? These are impact craters and are formed when an object like an asteroid or meteorite crashes into the surface of a larger solid object like a planet or a moon. You can investigate your own impact craters at home using balls, a bowl or tray and some sand, soil or even flour!
Water filters
Make your own water filter and clean up some dirty water.
Growing seeds
Discover how to plant seeds in a plastic bag so that you can watch them sprout and grow.
Constellation Tubes
Do you want to look at the stars but don't own a telescope? Make a constellation tube and you can see the stars whenever you want to. All you need is a cardboard tube, a sharp pencil, scissors, glue and our constellation printout.
Robot Coding
Learn how to use a simple code to control a robot by playing our game. Grab some scissors, a felt tip pen and our game print outs and you are ready to go.
Make a moon flipbook
Have you ever wondered why the Moon seems to be different shapes on different nights? Make this flipbook to track the Moon phases over a month using a print out, scissors and staples, tape or a clip.
Plastic bag storer
Reuse your empty milk containers and create a handy plastic bag storer!
Make a wormery
Making a wormery is a safe and simple way to observe and find out more about worms and what they are up to underneath the ground. All you need is an empty bottle, some soil and vegetable scraps and you are ready to go.
Transforming Tangram Pictures
What pictures can you make using 5 triangles, a parallelogram and a square? The possibilities are endless! Find out yourself by making your own tangram and creating multiple masterpieces.
Make Pixel Art
Find out how computers display images and create your own paper pixels.
Sun Dial
Can you tell the time without looking at your watch or phone? This activity uses some card, two pencils and some sticky tack to let you tell the time using the sun.
Building Bridges
Could you build a bridge strong enough for one of your cars or toys to cross? Use materials from around your home or garden to build the strongest bridge possible.
Reflective mobiles
Have you ever wondered what causes different materials to sparkle and shine? Make these reflective mobiles using any sparkly materials you have in your home, scissors, glue and string.
Insulating Ice
Have you ever wondered how to stop the ice cubes in your drink melting? In this investigation you will use materials from around your home to discover which help to slow down ice melting.
Fingerprints
Have you ever looked really closely at your own fingerprints? Use this simple method to take your own prints using only a pencil, paper, sticky tape, and of course, your fingers!
Wind Sock
Have you ever wondered which way the wind is blowing? Use an empty plastic bottle, some carrier bags, and a piece of string to discover more about the wind.
Looking through water
What happens to drawings when you look at them through a glass of water? All you need is a glass of water, some paper and a pen to find out.
Melting Ice
In this activity you'll set up a simple experiment to discover the warmest and coolest places in your home using ice cubes, plastic containers, a ruler or measuring stick and a timer.
Paper Pillars
During this investigation you will discover which paper shapes can hold the most books on top of them before they collapse. All you need is paper, a ruler, a pencil and some sticky tape and you are ready to start.
Balancing
Using "Room on a Broom" by Julia Donaldson as inspiration, this activity uses a coat hanger, string, containers such as yogurt pots and some of your small toys to investigate how we can get objects to balance on a beam.
Make Paper Aeroplanes
In this activity, you will make planes using paper. Then you’ll test how far they can fly.
Spinners
Make a spinning top from card and a short pencil and explore how your eyes see colour by spinning your top and recording what you can see.
Pop ups
Shadow tubes
Discover how to create shadows using a toilet roll tube, a torch, some cling film and materials such as paper, stickers or foil.
Floating Flowers
In this quick activity, you'll create floating paper flowers. The folded petals of your flowers will open up and your flower will bloom when placed in water.
Cardboard building shapes
Create your own building blocks using recycled cardboard and scissors.
Foil Boats
Design and build a boat from tin foil that can hold as many pennies as possible before sinking.
Build a nest
Use materials you find around your house to build a nest to keep an egg safe.
Blowing bubbles using a straw
Use things you can find in your kitchen to blow huge bubbles on your table!
Make Fish Tumblers
Make paper fish which tumble gently to the ground, using scissors and scrap paper.
If I Built a House
Listen to a story on YouTube and then create your own dream home from materials you can find in your house.
Share your STEM activity here…
