An Easy Way to Set Up Engineering Challenges

Whether you want to offer some STEM related playful learning at home or you’re setting up a center at school for kids to use, there are a lot of simple materials that can be used in a variety of engineering challenges. (I’ve written on my blog about how just gathering up the recycling can make a STEM challenge, for example.)

Sarah at Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls offers four great engineering challenges your kids can do with just three kinds of materials: plastic cups, craft sticks and little wooden blocks.

You can challenge them to do these particular tasks, or just give them the materials and see what they come up with. Or both! I love seeing how my daughter uses different materials and learns about how to balance a structure or make it taller as she goes. It’s so fun to watch kids’ minds work.

Do you keep materials on hand for engineering challenges? I’d love to hear what’s in your building box.

[Photo via Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls.]

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Creative Gifts to Make for Kids

My daughter is 16 and one of her favorite things to do on school breaks is watch The Great British Bake Off. It’s such a soothing show, as well as being creative and fun, and it’s low stakes enough that it isn’t stressful, which is just the thing you need when you’re on a break from school.

If you don’t have an oven or want to do your own real Bake Off challenges, this baking show inspired drawing challenge from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls is a great alternative. This works best if you have a group of kids to play, but you could also do it along with a child at home.

The post includes a bunch of different “baking” challenges for kids to draw. As an example: “Draw a dozen delicious doughnuts! Be sure to include at least two different flavors of icing. Challenge yourself to think of as many creative toppings as you can.”

Give them a set amount of time (maybe 10-15 minutes) to draw their creations based on the prompt. Then have each child present their creation, explaining what they chose to draw and why (and what the different flavors are if it’s not obvious).

There doesn’t have to be a winner, but kids can vote on their favorites or you can “award” things like most colorful, tallest creation, etc. Sarah suggests if doing this with little kids you can come up with an award for everyone, but there need not be prizes involved.

With older kids you might do a couple of rounds and pick winners so that you can have a “star baker” just like in the show.

This is a game that would be a lot of fun for kids of different ages, and you can do it multiple times with the different prompts.

Get all the details and the challenge cards from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls.

[Photo: Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls]

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