Christmas Grinch-Inspired Science Activities

It seems like the Christmas season more than any other brings out the creativity in teachers and proponents of playful learning. There are so many fun themed things you can do related to snowmen, Santa, elves and so much more.

Take the Grinch, for example. This collection of Grinch-inspired science activities from Read Science would be great to add to a grinch unit study where you also read the book, consider adjectives that might describe the grinch at different times in the story or rewrite the story, among other things.

That grinch playdough looks amazing, and sculpting a grinch out of playdough you made yourself adds art to the curriculum as well as science.

Have you ever done any grinch-related activities in the classroom or beyond? (That one about adjectives I stole from my daughter’s class, which did it this year.) I’d love to hear about them.

[Photo via Read Science.]

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Check out our DIY Grinch Gnome Craft over on our sister blog. Use Dollar Tree items to create a fun little Grinch decoration.

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St. Patrick's Day STEM Project Ideas

Holidays are a great time to pull in some themed STEM projects. Even kids who aren’t usually into science can get excited about making a reindeer fly or making a Christmas tree out of 3D shapes. Check out these fun Christmas STEM activities to try in your classroom or at home.

Speaking of making reindeer fly, there are lots of different takes on this engineering challenge. In the instructions from The Educator’s Spin on it, kids make a reindeer from recycled materials, then use a string to make it “fly.” You can also do this with a balloon, like in this version from Team Cartwright.

And that Christmas tree project? That one is from Steamsational, and it calls for making a bunch of 3D triangles you then assemble into a tree. The post includes all the tips you’ll need and a printable template for making the triangles.

Another cute idea from Steamsational is making Santa’s sleigh out of an egg carton. Give kids design challenges such as that Santa must stay in the sleigh, it should be able to move and pull weight. It’s so fun to see what kids come up with.

Science Sparks has a printable book full of Christmas-themed experiments with templates kids can cut out and use to make spinning sleighs, shadow puppets, a paper tube to test how much weight it can hold and more. These activities are really low prep beyond the printing, so they’re great when you need to fill a little time at home or at school.

If you have Legos and jingle bells you can make a simple engineering challenge by having kids build mazes that the bells can roll through. Get the details from Innovation Kids Lab. (And check out this fun book of Lego Christmas ornaments!)

Of course you can also put a Christmas spin on classic STEM activities, like making a baking soda volcano in a plastic or glass ball ornament (Little Bins for Little Hands), red and green magic milk (Fun Learning for Kids), Borax crystal ornaments (Go Science Kids) and more!

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