STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) isn't just for school aged kids. Your baby or toddler is a scientist too! Try a couple of these activities that are geared toward kids 0-3 but can be enjoyed by the whole family!
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Exploring Science and Math: Let's roll a ball!
Motion is physical science and helps your child understand cause and effect.
You can do this with any age- holding or grasping the ball and rolling the ball. This type of activity also teaches your child spatial awareness! They learn and adjust how hard or soft to roll or throw through the repetition of this activity. Having a target, whether it is you or something to knock over is key to gaining an understanding of spatial awareness.
Here are some things to talk about while playing with balls- weight, size, texture. Does is bounce? What are other objects you can roll?
Organize/ Classify: If you have several balls classifying or organizing objects is a pre-math skill, pick how you want to organize them. By color? By size? By bounciest?
Exploring technology:
Encourage children to play with toys that have wheels, do you have any with broken wheels so they can compare?
The paintbrushes and popsicle sticks from the previous tasks are tools! What ways can these tools be used in other activities? Is there a wrong or right way to use them?
Exploring Art and Science: Blooming paper flowers:
You will need:
This activity can be scaled up or down depending on the age of your child. Even school aged kids can join in by creating their own flower shapes.
Use this template or draw your own flowers and have your child color them in!
Once your flower is colored in and cut out fold the petals into the center- check out this photo to see what we mean.
Place the folded flower into the bowl of flower and see what happen!
The science concept we are talking about here is adhesion (water loves to stick to things) or more commonly known as absorption.
Exploring Engineering, Math and Science: Bubbles and light refraction:
Materials to make bubbles at home:
Have you ever seen a rainbow on a bubble? This is light refracting off the surface of the bubble. Light likes to travel in a straight line but when it meets this mixture the light is forced to bend and you see the colors within the light.
You can also work on some fine motor skills by shaping pipe cleaners into bubble wands. See the photo here.
Or string yarn through straws for older kids: Thread the yarn through the straws. Tie the ends together and slide the knot inside a straw. Hold up the two straws spreading the string evenly between the them. See photo here.
Exploring Science: Air
Grab a blow dryer, set it on cool and see what the air can push!
You can use, scarves, tissues, ping pong balls, cotton balls etc.
Predictive questions: Grab a bunch of items and ask your child if they think it will float or not. Why might something not get pushed up by the air?