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.

Next Plan Idea:

Learning about Women in STEM

There are so many fun things to do with fall leaves, which is a good thing because they are everywhere. We have more than a dozen trees in our yard so I would always try to do some leaf crafts when my daughter was younger. We made rubbings and preserved leaves and did a ton of jumping in leaf piles, but if you’re looking for more activities to do with leaves, read on.

If you have a lot of different kinds of trees in your yard, on the playground or at the park, you can make leaf mandalas like these from Red Ted Art. They’re inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, who makes temporary art with natural materials (learn more about him at the link).

Leaves are art all by themselves, but you can make them an even lovelier display by combining leaves with other natural materials in a collage. Or make a little natural weaving loom like this one from Woodlark to hold a bunch of leaves and other fall pretties in a way that can continuously be changed.

Another way to turn leaves into art is by using markers or pens to trace the veins on a leaf. This idea is from Go Science Kids, and it’s a simple thing that makes really pretty leaves to display while also giving you can chance to talk about why leaves have veins and what is happening when leaves change colors.

Kids Craft Room has a great idea for making leaf luminaries, which would be fun to decorate the table from now through Thanksgiving. The best thing about these is that you don’t have to use any glue, so it’s easy for kids to make (with some supervision since cutting is involved).

This one does use glue, but it’s so cute it’s probably worth the potential mess. Our Kid Things shows you how to make an adorable hedgehog with fall leaves using their printable template and a paper plate.

I also love this fall in a bottle project from The Crazy Outdoor Mama. It’s like a snow globe with leaves and has the added cuteness of a kid’s photo inside. This would be a fun one to make at school to give to parents or grandparents, and it’s so easy and cute!

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