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.]

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

Have you read?

Leave a Reply