Simple STEM Activities for families

  • Create a treasure hunt with a map and clues
  • Learn to identify trees by their leaves
  • Read a book with a STEM theme
  • Make the alphabet from stickers or other natural items
  • Make your name out of recycled materials
  • Interview a relative using storycorps.org
  • Take your bike apart and put it back together
  • Make something out of old puzzle pieces
  • Watch the movie Hidden Figures
  • Make a LEGO maze
  • Test objects in your house to see if they will sink or float
  • Write instructions on how to make a sandwich and let someone follow them exactly
  • Use the cards A-10 and play war, but see who can add, subtract, or multiply fastest
  • Play battleship
  • Build a paper airplane launcher
  • Build a fort using couch cushions and blankets
  • Plant some flowers
  • Make something useful from duct tape
  • Invent something to solve a problem in your home
  • Make “rubber stamps” out of cardboard and pasta
  • Learn to solve a Rubik’s Cube
  • Write your own book, including drawings and a cover
  • Rearrange furniture in a room to improve function and movement in the room
  • Track and graph your high score in a game
  • Make ice cubes from various liquids and see how long each takes to freeze
  • Make dinner for your family
  • Determine how much waste there is from cooking a meal
  • Invent your own musical instrument
  • Try making gears using the website gearsket.ch
  • Create a secret code using a shift or “Caesar” cipher
  • Pick a word and see how many other words you can make from the letters
  • Measure and graph temperature or rain totals
  • Make a time capsule to open in 10 years
  • Make artwork using shaving cream, food coloring, and a toothpick
  • Plant a butterfly garden
  • Invent a toy for your pet
  • Watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
  • Freeze a small toy or coin in water and make a timelapse video of it melting
  • Put different amounts of water in glass containers and tap gently to make music
  • Make paper airplanes using foldnfly.com
  • Try sprouting a carrot top, dried bean or fruit seed
  • Put some dirty pennies in vinegar
  • Put celery or flowers in water that contains food coloring
  • Learn bird calls
  • Build the tallest tower with one piece of paper and tape
  • Turn an old book into a secret hiding place
  • Learn to cook a new recipe or invent your own
  • Observe the moon each night and take pictures to make a timelapse video
  • Measure things with a tape measure
  • Learn to read a ruler
  • Build a model city with items in your house
  • Make a bird feeder using a pinecone, suet and birdseed
  • Count how many and what time of birds come to your feeder or yard
  • Read a book and make a “book trailer”
  • Paint rocks with encouraging words
  • Weave a bracelet
  • Learn about a STEM career
  • Write a story, act it out with your family and record it
  • Make a sundial
  • Invent a board game using bottle caps or other small items as pieces
  • Draw something with isometric dot paper
  • Make a slow motion video of something in nature
  • Learn to fold cloth napkins
  • Make bread using yeast
  • Draw 20 circles and turn each into something (pizza, planets, wheels, ect)
  • Build something using toothpicks or straws
  • Practice coding using scratch.org or code.org
  • Learn to crochet or knit
  • Make your own tangrams
  • Learn how cell phones work
  • Draw a detailed map of a room in your home
  • Learn to sew
  • Make something new from an empty toothpaste tube
  • Look at and identify types of clouds
  • Learn about the history of technology in your area
  • Make a cardboard automata (movable sculpture)

STEM Lesson Plans