Make STEM Drawers to Keep Materials Together

I’ve been working on revamping my daughter’s playroom into more of an art/tinkering space for a while now, and I have a feeling I’m going to be stealing this super smart idea from Pocket of Preschool for making STEM drawers and bins.

Hers are in a classroom, of course, but the same idea can be used at home with plastic drawers filled with items for construction, engineering and exploration.

The trouble with doing STEM at home is that you end up with so much stuff it can be hard to know what you have and how to store it, so this makes the whole process that much easier, both because you have a limit to what you can store and because you — and your kids — know right where everything goes.

Whenever they can help themselves get the supplies they need and know how to clean up, that’s a huge win in my book.

She also has a great collection of building challenge cards, mini books, charts, even labels for the drawers on her Teachers Pay Teachers site, or you can DIY your own.

How to do you organize STEM stuff at home or in the classroom? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

[Photo: Pocket of Preschool.]

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Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

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