One of the best ways to get kids excited to learn is to add fun, easy homeschool STEM activities to your homeschool curriculum.
With STEM activities, kids get super excited because they are encouraged to experiment and think about different ways to solve problems.
Kids like being encouraged to try new things. It is even more fun when they are allowed to make mistakes and try again when things don’t work out the first (or second OR third) time.
That is exactly what Evan-Moor offers in the STEM Lessons and Challenges series for grades 1–6.
Since STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, the activities in STEM Lessons and Challenges apply these STEM skills to areas of physical, life, or earth science.
Each book in this series invites kids to think about a specific solution for each of the 15 different tasks that require STEM skills and knowledge.
However, one of the highlights of STEM Lessons and Challenges is that kids are supported in each step of the design process with planning sheets to ensure their success. How cool is that?
Layout of STEM Lessons and Challenges
Not only does STEM Lessons and Challenges provide fun, easy homeschool STEM activities, but it is also simple to use.
The layout of STEM Lessons and Challenges is clearly organized, which makes it easy to plan and implement.
Within in each fun, easy STEM activity, Evan-Moor provides all of the planning pages your kids will need to plan, design, test, and evaluate their ideas.
First, the Teacher Overview section gives ideas for how to prepare kids for the challenge and how to guide them through the process.
Then, the kids begin their task by reading background information about the science concepts to prepare them for the STEM challenge.
The visual literacy page is another terrific tool to help kids understand how they can use these science concepts in the related STEM challenge.
Next, the STEM challenge is presented to the kids with a specific task and goal.
Kids work through the design process to develop, test, and adjust their ideas to solve each STEM challenge.
Using STEM Lessons and Challenges in Our Homeschooling
STEM Lessons and Challenges is an ideal way to keep your kids engaged and using higher-order thinking skills. This is such a boredom cure!
We often use STEM Lessons and Challenges for our Fun Friday activities to finish our week having a blast learning together! It is the ideal resource for fun, easy homeschool STEM activities.
One of the STEM Lessons and Challenges we did was the Seed Launcher Challenge from grade 4. The challenge was to design something that would scatter seeds at least 3 feet.
My kids thought they had an easy solution: Use the air pressure inside of a balloon to scatter seeds.
However, their idea wasn’t successful.
They went back to the provided design process to work together to try an alternative option. Together, they decided to try a new idea – a catapult!
They had a BLAST and are asking to do STEM activities every week! As you can see in this video, they were so excited their idea worked. They even kept “testing” it again and again because they were having a great time!
Evan-Moor’s STEM Lessons and Challenges keeps kids engaged and having fun while learning. It is ideal to enrich your kids’ science curriculum.
To learn more about these books, check out each grade level:
STEM Lesson and Challenges for Grade 1
STEM Lesson and Challenges for Grade 2
STEM Lesson and Challenges for Grade 3
STEM Lesson and Challenges for Grade 4
STEM Lesson and Challenges for Grade 5
STEM Lesson and Challenges for Grade 6
Do your kids like fun, easy homeschool STEM activities?
Tell us your kids’ favorite STEM activity they have tried so far!
For full-color STEM activity books for early learners, check out this Homeschool Review of Evan-Moor’s Smart Start: STEM Activity Book.
If you are interested in a homeschool STEM curriculum, check out Evan-Moor’s Homeschool STEM and Critical Thinking Bundle for grades 1–6.
Amy Michaels is a certified teacher with 11 years of elementary classroom experience who is actively homeschooling her own children. Her mission is share the best teaching methods and resources with all homeschoolers. Amy supports parents through her podcasts, webinars, and online training for homeschoolers on her website www.thrivehomeschooling.com.