Book Review: 100 Easy STEAM Activities

There are so many great STEM and STEAM activities out there, and I love having books of activities around so my child can choose something she wants to do rather than me having to direct or suggest activities all the time (she’s 10, so she has a good idea of what sounds interesting or fun to her).

100 Easy STEAM Activities by Andrea Scalzo Yi of Raising Dragons is a great collection of low-prep projects that are lots of fun for kids and help them learn while keeping them entertained.

Some of the categories in the book include:

Simple science experiments
Achievable technology ideas (aka coding without computers)
Easy engineering challenges
Accessible art projects
No problem math activities
Toddler STEAM play activities
Seasonal STEAM activities
Sensory STEAM ideas

In all there are 100 different activities, a lot of which you can probably do with materials you have in your house or with a quick trip to the store. Most are great for elementary school aged kids, except of course for the toddler activities.

Each project is rated from one to three beakers in terms of difficulty, so it’s easy to pick things that are perfect for your kids’ skill level.

A few projects at random to give you a taste: Paint your name in binary code, Playdough maze, Calm down building block sensory bottle, Crayon resist leaf prints, Raised salt painting, Fraction animals, Magic pepper experiment.

While lots of these you may have seen before, the beauty of a book version is that you and your kids can flip through it at random when “I’m bored” hits, or if there’s something specific you want to focus on that day. It’s a lot of fun for little artists, engineers, mathematicians and kids in general.

Learn more about the book at her website.

About the book: 192 pages, paperback, 100 activities. Published by Page Street Publishing, suggested retail price $19.99.

Check out our Online store for special buys on Educational gifts We find bulk items and end-of-stock supplies to bring you heavily discounted items. (make sure you check our store often so you don’t miss out on new stock). We also have some free printable files, including a Science PDF for learning about Microscopes.

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Learning about Women in STEM

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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