Build a Peep Launcher: Springtime STEM

This Peep launcher project from Team Cartwright looks like so much fun, and is a great engineering challenge for kids. You’ve probably built a catapult or trebuchet to launch pom-poms and other light items, but Peeps are heavy so they require a little more robust of a machine to get the job.

(Yes, it’s a simple machine, also known as a lever. The post explains the science, too.)

While the post uses bunny Peeps you could try it with different shapes, too. What’s your prediction for which shape will fly the farthest? Can you hit a target with a Peep? There’s no end of fun you can have with this project, which if you ask me is way better than actually eating those weird sugary shapes.

[Photo: Team Cartwright.]

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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Bunny Activities for Kids

Giving math a holiday twist is fun for kids of any age, but little ones especially will have more fun learning math concepts when there’s a bit of Christmas involved. Check out more Christmas math activities for older kids here.

Teaching Mama has a great set of printable Christmas activities for preschoolers, most of with have some connection to math. There’s connect the dots, repeating patterns, counting, color by number, number puzzles and more. And it’s totally free!

Practice counting by making candy canes with pipe cleaners and beads. This is such an easy activity and a great idea, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Get all the details from Nurture Store. You could also turn these into little wreaths or other holiday shapes if you want.

Print out the counting mats from Living Life and Learning, grab some festive little pompoms or other counters (Christmas erasers, coins in red and green, whatever you have handy) and kids can practice counting numbers from 1 to 12 and working on one to one correspondence.

Preschool Play and Learn has a similar idea using Christmas tree shapes, but these don’t have spaces for you to add the decorations, just numbers for the number to add to each one. These are meant to be playdough mats, but you could also use pom poms, beads or even miniature Christmas ornaments to decorate your trees while you count to 20.

Or try these printable Christmas number puzzles from Math Kids and Chaos. The two-part puzzles feature a number on one side and the same number of some Christmas-themed thing on the other side. The edges of the pieces only match with the one that’s correct. You could combine this one with a counting activity to have kids count out the number of counters that the numeral shows, then match with the piece that shows that number of things and count them again. The set includes puzzles with numbers one to 10 and ten frames with numbers one to 20.

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