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Easy Valentine’s Day STEM Activities for Preschool

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Sensory activities and STEM projects are great for any time of year, and it’s easy to give them a holiday twist for kids of any ages.

Here are a few fun and easy STEM (or Montessori-inspired, sensory ideas, whatever you want to call it) that are great for little kids. You can do them at home or in a small classroom, or keep them in centers for kids to play with when they want.

A couple of these use food and I know not everyone loves to do that, but I’ve got some optional ideas if you don’t want to use food in these projects.

First, when it comes to sensory play there’s not always a lot of attention paid to sounds, but playing with sounds is a lot of fun and helps kids develop the auditory sense that is so important for playing music later on. And Next Comes L made these cute little heart-shaped sound-matching boxes, which you can fill will all sorts of things from the house or the classroom that make different sounds (there are some ideas in the post).

Color sorting and fine motor skills combine in this color-sorting conversation heart activity from A Little Pinch of Perfect. If you don’t want to use conversation hearts (I don’t like them and wouldn’t want to buy them just for this!) you could just use different colored pom-poms, heart-shaped erasers of different colors, or any small items you have in quantity in different colors that could be sorted.

Last is the classic marshmallow building activity, with a heart-shaped twist, from Glitter on a Dime. I’m not actually sure what you could use in place of marshmallows for this one since it’s such a classic. Maybe you could try little cotton balls? It might even be possible to dye them with food coloring to give them more of a Valentine’s Day twist. Or you could make balls out of play dough and use them instead.

Either way these activities are fun for littles and give them great motor skill practice and some sensory exploration at the same time.

Gum Drop STEM Challenges

Valentine’s Day Optical Illusion for Kids

Valentine’s Day Conversation Starters

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) activities are important for children’s learning because they provide hands-on, problem-based experiences that encourage critical thinking and problem-solving skills. These skills are essential for success in today’s world and will be important for children as they grow and enter the workforce.

Montessori-inspired activities also focus on hands-on learning and place an emphasis on self-directed learning and independence. These activities foster creativity, concentration, and focus, and help children develop a love of learning.

Both STEM and Montessori-inspired activities can help children develop a wide range of skills and abilities, including creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication, which are important for success in school and in life.

 

 

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Have you read?

Resources for Learning about George Washington Carver

March is Peanut Month, so it’s a great time to spend some time learning about the life and legacy of George Washington Carver. While he is known as a scientist who explored many different uses for the peanut, he also worked to help diversify agriculture among Black farmers, encouraging crop rotation and natural fertilization methods to enrich the soil.

He “creative chemistry” methods resulted in more than 280 products that could be made from peanuts as well as more than 150 made from sweet potatoes. You can read a full bio and learn about some of these products from Tuskegee University. This slide presentation covers his early life as well as his work in agriculture, science and has some activities like fact/opinion, similarities and differences and a quiz for kids to take at the end.

Calm and Wave has a unit study for George Washington Carver on Teachers Pay Teachers, but their blog post has some good information and resources, too.

Another great mini history lesson found on Teachers Pay Teachers is from Look We’re Learning. Her blog post goes into a lot of detail about what’s included.

The Mailbox has a mini booklet you can print that has space for kids to draw picture related to his life.

If you want to get into peanuts, you can plant peanuts and learn more about how they grow, or make this paper plate peanut plant craft from Happy Toddler Playtime.

Here are a few more quick projects and printables to use when you’re doing a George Washington Carver unit:

My blog post linked at the very top has some books you might want to check out to learn more about him. And if your kiddos can handle peanuts, throwing in some peanut themed snacks would be a great way to round out a GWC day!

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