My kids are very creative. They enjoy hands on learning more than just picking up a book and reading it. When we were chosen to receive and review Tied 2 Teaching's STEM Activities, Full Year of Challenges with Close Reading, we were very excited.
So you may be wondering what is a STEM activity? STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. As you work through these activities, your child will be learning without even knowing it. What makes this bundle even more special is the founder Matthew Kelly also teaches Literacy. How awesome is that?
This bundle includes 4 STEM projects for each month of the year, except for August. In August, you get 3 STEM projects and a mega bundle of building challenges that little hands will love to work on. I was impressed with the amount of projects offered and how each project held the attention of my kids.
Our daughter Hope was the first to do one of these STEM activities. She chose to work on the House of Cards. This is one of the STEM activities from the month of July. She didn't care for any of the February projects so I let her pick one she really liked.
With each challenge there is a Design Challenge Reading with Wonderopolis. They will be guided to a website where they will read all about the subject they are studying and then answer questions on the worksheet provided. It gives them background knowledge of the project they are doing.
As your child works through the activity they will be filling out STEM Design Challenge worksheets that will talk them through how they are thinking while completing the activity. It definitely teaches critical thinking skills.
As Hope tried different ways to build a house of cards she figured out it wasn't as easy as she thought it would be. She got frustrated a few times and wanted to give up, but I encouraged her to keep trying. Her first attempt was on the kitchen table. It didn't take long to see that the surface was too slick. She then tried the living room carpet. Well, that didn't work either so she got a piece of card-stock and went back to the kitchen table. The card-stock gave her enough friction to get her house of cards to stand. She was able to get 2 floors but she wasn't happy she wanted it to be bigger.
When her dad came home they decided to work on a house of cards together. It turned out pretty well and Hope was happy with their results. This activity taught her patience and endurance. That was a bonus!
Even though these activities are geared toward grades 3-6, our son Josh, who is 14, wanted to try one. He wanted to build the Rainbow Bridge.
During this project he was able to study all about suspension bridges. He has always been fascinated with bridges of all kinds so this activity caught his eye. This particular STEM activity can be found in the March STEM activities.
Josh had a great time building his bridge after completing his worksheets. He couldn't wait to see if his bridge could withstand the weight of 50 pennies... GUESS WHAT? IT DID!!! He was so thrilled.
We worked through quite a few activities over the last few weeks but these 2 above were their favorites. Want to see a couple more of the projects Hope completed?
I particularly loved her bridge. This activity was fun and reinforced her Anatomy class she is taking this year. She worked on this for an entire afternoon. It had to be perfect she said :)
Finally here we have her Carrot Carriage. She just had fun with this one and after she got it to work, she took out the toothpicks and fed the carrots to her pets.
If you have children who enjoy learning through hands on activities, I would highly recommend that you check this bundle out. It is really fun and educational.
Would you like to learn more about Tied 2 Teaching? I encourage you to go to their website or social media pages listed below:
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We also have more reviews for you to read over here
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