Winter is on its way, and as the weather gets colder, we know you’ll be looking for some ideas to keep your kids busy and engaged while you are spending much of your time indoors.
STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) activities are an important part of our program, and encourage our kids to use their creativity, think critically, and solve problems, all while having fun!
For our December STEAM activities, we are sharing two simple games that you can play as a family – The Paper Chain Challenge and Bead Races.
With the Paper Chain Challenge, all you need is construction paper, scissors, and tape. Each person gets their own piece of construction paper, and will have to compete to see who can build the longest paper chain while only using that single sheet of paper. This is a great critical thinking activity, and works really well as a timed challenge.  Your family will want to play over and over again, adjusting your strategies along the way to improve your chains with each successive round!
Our second activity is Bead Races, a really fun way to introduce your child to the concept of gravity. All you need are some bead strands (these are usually available at the dollar store) and a cup – that’s it! Load the beads very carefully into the cup, making sure that they don’t get tangled, with a strand sticking out over the edge of the cup. Then, give a little tug on the strand, and watch as the weight of the outside beads pulls all of the other beads out of the cup. Do this as a family, and race each other to see whose beads come out the fastest. You can get bead chains of different lengths and bead sizes and observe how they react differently during the experiment. This is another activity that you can repeatmany times, learning as you go!
For the Paper Chain Challenge: CLICK HERE
For the Bead Races: CLICK HERE
