JumpyTheFrog Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 I'm starting a STEM club and I'm looking for fun, hands on science activities that are good for groups of kids ages 6-12. For our first meeting, I'm going to group the kids into teams and have them build gumdrop bridges and see which can hold the most weight. Does anyone have a website or book they recommend for more ideas? I'm think of doing owl pellet dissections later. I want to start with cheaper activities while I get the hang of things. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Lava Mama Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 What an awesome idea! Lurking here to get some ideas of maybe doing something like that! :) Hot Lava Mama Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erica in OR Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Somebody on the forums mentioned the Time to Invent resources another time. Lots of fun building challenge ideas that use either stuff you'd recycle anyway or items from the Dollar Store. I used several of the activities this year with 5th graders and older for an inventing unit, but we successfully adapted some of the stuff for younger students when we had a "showcase day" for all ages. Erica in OR 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpyTheFrog Posted March 31, 2014 Author Share Posted March 31, 2014 Last fall, my son went to a free trial of Challenge Island with a local homeschooling group. The kids were put on teams and each team had to build a marble roller coaster out of insulation tubes cut in half, duct table, and the furniture in the room. After the class was over, he told me, "That was the most fun I ever had." The kids were so excited to work together it. Challenge Island charges $15 per one hour class and I was hoping to offer something equally fun for close to free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRmommy Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Steven Caney's Invention Book or Steven Caney's Ultimate Building Book 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpyTheFrog Posted March 31, 2014 Author Share Posted March 31, 2014 Somebody on the forums mentioned the Time to Invent resources another time. Thanks. That looks like a helpful website. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alte Veste Academy Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 DIY.org is AWESOME. There are patches! I have been toying with the idea of starting a DIY club. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denise in Florida Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 I was a team coach for Odyssey of the Mind for several years. Along with the long term problem the kids would work on we also did spontaneous problems (here is a pile of stuff make an 'x') Google Odyssey of the Mind, Spontaneous, hands on problems. There is a ton of free information out there. Good luck, sounds like an awesome club. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpyTheFrog Posted March 31, 2014 Author Share Posted March 31, 2014 Google Odyssey of the Mind, Spontaneous, hands on problems. There is a ton of free information out there. That's a great idea! I did OM for four years as a kid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denise in Florida Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Had another quick idea. Look into the 4H project books for Electricity/Magnetism; Robotics; and Small Engines. The books are very cheap. The quality of the experiments, projects, curriculum in the 4H books vary greatly depending on the author and series. Some are great some are twaddle, try a few they are usually on $4 or less. I used the electricity projects in a co-op with several younger boys, they made circuits, lit up light bulbs, made switches and electric magnets. It was fun but not deep. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 If you have a university near by many departments will have outreach coordinators. We had a great hands-on presentation by the guy from the physics department. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpyTheFrog Posted April 1, 2014 Author Share Posted April 1, 2014 Now I need a name for the club. DH jokingly suggested "Science Gone Wrong," but agreed that it wouldn't attract too many people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barbara H Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I bet the kids will love it. I saw a math teaching resource the other day that I looked really good. http://www.moebiusnoodles.com/naturalmathmultiplication/ "We invite parents, teachers, playgroup hosts, and math circle leaders to join us in April for an open, crowd-funded online course about multiplication. Each week there will be five activities to help your kids learn multiplication by exploring patterns and structure. To get your course completion badge, do at least two activities every week. The course starts April 6 and runs for four weeks. Dr. Maria Droujkova and Yelena McManaman are designing and leading the activities. Each activity will have adaptations for toddlers (2-4), young kids (4-6), and older kids (7-12). If you want to remix activities for babies or teens, we will help!" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Curt Gabrielson has some great books w/ ideas... he runs a maker workshop for kids and has a number of books... I've read the "Tinkering" book and the "Stomp Rockets, Catapults...." book and thought both were good. We've done some of the projects with DS7. Currently we are in a big siege engine phase. So far DS has independently built a catapult out of craft sticks and rubber bands, a weighted tinker toy trebuchet, a k-nex trebuchet using nuts as weights, a catapult out of various junk etc.... DS7 has read "The Art of the Catapult" by William Gurstelle and gotten ideas but I've pushed off building any more elaborate models until we can fire these things outside. Gurstelle's books are also great but probably more elaborate than what you are looking for right now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 A while ago(~2yrs?), I remember seeing a post about a weekly challenge site. It had projects like building the tallest tower from six paper towel tubes and 4 feet of twine. Afterwards kids could post pictures and talk about it... This was back before diy.org was a thing. Does anyone remember what this site was, I haven't been able to find it again and it would be perfect for us now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 A while ago(~2yrs?), I remember seeing a post about a weekly challenge site. It had projects like building the tallest tower from six paper towel tubes and 4 feet of twine. Afterwards kids could post pictures and talk about it... This was back before diy.org was a thing. Does anyone remember what this site was, I haven't been able to find it again and it would be perfect for us now. Kidswhothink? She has changed the template...it used to look a little different. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Strongly recommending the Arvind Gupta Toys from Trash site. Awesomely simple and do-able activities using found materials. There are you tube videos for the activities as well. All free. We did a number of these when kiddo was 8-9+. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Kidswhothink? She has changed the template...it used to look a little different. That wasn't it... but it was *exactly* what I described... and looks absolutely fabulous. It appears that the latest post is from last Fall :( but otherwise is just the sort of thing I wanted. Thanks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stripe Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Another site with ideas that are especially nice for younger kids is Design Squad. http://pbskids.org/designsquad/ Also if you can find books by Bernie Zubrowski, they have some fun science museum type activities. Strongly recommending the Arvind Gupta Toys from Trash site. Wow, I've been to this site but never found this section -- there are enough ideas on there to keep someone busy for years! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitterpatter Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 http://www.instructables.com/member/WYE_Lance/?show=INSTRUCTABLES 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom31257 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Following Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stripe Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 http://www.howtoons.com/ is neat too 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpyTheFrog Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 I've got nine kids signed up already. It filled up so quickly I had to go on the waiting list for my own class! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Check out these sites, look for "Educator" or "kids" sections: IEEE (look at pre-university information) tryengineering.org - by the IEEE NASA (great lesson plans, all ages)American Chemical Society (ACS - they have a mag w/activities for each age range) National Science Teachers Association (NSTA - look for "free resources") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plink Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 The Boston Museum of Science has a fun series of fiction stories that each come with their own challenge for the kids to work on. My crew has had a fantastic time working through them. http://www.eie.org/eie-curriculum 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amy in NH Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Hydraulic Judobots Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpyTheFrog Posted April 14, 2014 Author Share Posted April 14, 2014 We had our first class today. There were nine kids, ages 6-12, with most of them being six. To see how shapes affect the strength of something, we started by making bridges out of one sheet of paper draped across blocks. Flat held the least, arched was a bit stronger, having the two long sides folded up was much better, and the best was folding the paper like a paper fan. I showed them how the pleated bridged looked like the ends of corrugated cardboard. (All this info was from a kids' library book about building bridges and towers.) Then I turned them loose with spice drops and toothpicks. I provided pages with suggested bridge patterns, although the kids weren't too interested in them. I think that was because most of them were too young to understand how to read the diagram. Everyone had fun, although the six year-olds didn't really understand what to do and needed prodding from their moms. I think next time I may raise the minimum age to seven. The other choice would be to say six year olds can come if they can build Legos or other projects by themselves following a simple diagram. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Χά�ων Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Have you heard of time to invent? http://timetoinvent.org/ It is aimed at 5th grade but looks easy to adapt up and down Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FriedClams Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Check out the you tube channel of "king of random". My kids and I spent a couple hours yesterday making the matchbox rockets. He has a ton of fun stuff on there!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Check out the you tube channel of "king of random". My kids and I spent a couple hours yesterday making the matchbox rockets. He has a ton of fun stuff on there!!! I'm glad to see King of Random recommended here. We did his homemade speaker project and it was so much fun (and it dove tailed well with our science unit). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 I did. I felt like I'd better at least have an idea of where we were headed and the route we wanted to use to get there. It was lik looking at a map of the US and deciding that we were going from Seattle to New England, and that the trip might include Southern California and the Rocky Mountains and probably some part of the Mississippi River but that we wouldn't get the Deep South. Then each year I'd do more planning, looking at the coming three years, bearing in mind the big picture. Then I'd make the specific route plans--hotel reservations (that level of metaphoric detail). Having the big picture in place was an enormous help when our plans got thrown out of whack due to illness or cussedness or better information. We got to New England, only got Northern California, but had a surprise trip to Italy instead. And then when our train crashed just as we got yo Delaware, we were still close enough to walk the rest of the way. All of that is a metaphor. I hope you know that. Without the long term plan, I'd have gotten confused somewhere around Winnemucca and given up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raining Pineapples Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Check out the you tube channel of "king of random". My kids and I spent a couple hours yesterday making the matchbox rockets. He has a ton of fun stuff on there!!! Thanks for this. We are making his squishy ninja balls today after deciding we were likely to accidentally blow something up or burn something down if we tried the other projects! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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