It’s National Science Week! Let’s see how much science fun we can have with children this week! And don’t worry if your child is not attending childcare or kinder at the moment – we can support you to have engaging science and technology experiences so National Science Week can come to you!
Science and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) activities are great for stimulating curiosity in children and encouraging them to explore cause and effect. They can also promote problem-solving and creative thinking. In fact, in today’s technology-focused world, STEM delivers modern life skills to children!
Our free Music Kinder at Home group of children, parents and educators will be focusing on science this week too. Join in with us via Facebook as our educators take children through a bunch of exciting science experiments and activities. Many of our sessions are recorded so you can either watch them as we post them or keep them in mind for when you need an engaging learning experience for your children to explore.
For some extra STEM ideas for home, these are simple and require minimal assistance, so you can set children up nearby your workstation to experiment and explore while you work or get some jobs done around the home.
Simple STEM ideas for Science Week at home
Solid to liquid: This one is super easy! Put some ice in a bowl and keep track as the ice melts, changing its form from a solid to a liquid. Add food colouring or glitter to make it decorative if you like. Children may also be fascinated to pour the liquid back into an ice tray, popping it in the freezer and finding out that it can return to its solid state once again!
Build a bridge: Gather some household items or even toy blocks and encourage children to try to build a bridge structure. Try a few different ways, perhaps with icy pole sticks, cardboard, cups — whatever you can find. See which bridge is strongest by testing how much weight they can hold.
Float or sink: A bathtime favourite but easy enough to do at the kitchen table too. A tub or bowl of water and a few waterproof objects will do the trick. Pick up an item, guess whether it will float or sink then drop it into the water to find out! Encourage children to consider why the object might float or sink. Maybe you could extend this activity by adding sails to an object that floats to make a boat!
Have fun with science and enjoy watching faces light up with curiosity and interest as you experiment!
For extra resources and information, check out the National Science Week website.
