Looking for even more holiday STEM activities? Check out this post!
If you’re a teacher, most classroom holiday activities you come across online involve reading, language arts, and paper crafts, but what about math and science? How can we bring fun to these subjects too?
With the STEM dilemma at our feet, many educators and supporters of education have been pushing STEM, trying to inspire students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. While science fairs, competitions, and bringing in real world scientists to talk to kids are great ways to get kids interested in these fields, perhaps we should also focus on incorporating hands-on science into the daily life of each student.
This means that science should be included in fun and exciting ways just as other school subjects are. If kids get to wear their PJ’s to school and have a reading day, or get to make a fun holiday craft with glitter, and then math time involves timed times tables, you can only guess which subjects their going to enjoy more.
It’s crack down time. This season bring holiday spirit to math and science. Doing so may require some creativity. But one of the best things you can do is to try to give classic science experiments a twist. To give you a head start, check out these fun holiday science experiments:
Make crystal snowflakes: Remember the classic crystal experiment? Give this experiment a twist by turning crystals into beautiful ornaments (can be gifts for parents!).
Crystalline Snowflake
Image: Silver and Chalk
Materials you’ll need:
- White pipe cleaners
- Sting
- Popsicle stick
- Jar
- 3 tablespoons of borax
- 1 drop blue food coloring
- 1 cup boiling water
Instructions:
Cut 3 5-inch sized pieces of pipe cleaner and twist them together to form a snowflake. Add a 1 to 1.5 inch piece of pipe cleaner to each point of the snowflake. Attach the string to the top of the snowflake and secure to a popsicle stick. Combine the borax, food coloring, and boiling water to the jar. Next, hang the snowflake in the jar so that it is suspended by the popsicle stick and submerged under the solution. Allow the snowflake to sit overnight. In the morning, you are your students will have a beautiful surprise!
Have another classroom holiday activity for science? Share here!
Resources:
http://www.marthastewart.com/269342/crystal-snowflake
