Have you ever done a STEM challenge in your classroom and it was too easy or too hard for your students?

There are a few quick and easy ways to challenge the difficulty of ANY STEM challenge or activity!

If you want to make a STEM challenge EASIER...

• Increase the amount of time for the challenge.
• Eliminate timed challenges.
• Give students a second chance at the STEM challenge using what they learned from their first experience to guide them.
• Give hints!
• Increase the amount of tape or any other supplies that were limited in the challenge.
• Let students switch teams.
• Turn an individual challenge into a pair or team challenge.
• Give struggling groups a hand.
• Allow groups to attach towers, bridges, or other structures to a table or the floor.

If you want to make a STEM challenge HARDER...

• Decrease the amount of time for the challenge.
• Add a time component to a challenge if it is not already a timed challenge.
• Reduce the amount of materials, like tape, that students get for the challenge.
• Take away supplies like scissors at a certain time during the challenge.  You can make it a known time or a surprise!
• Turn a team challenge into a challenge for individuals or pairs.
• Make student teams move to a new table and begin work on another team's project.  Try moving teams every 10 minutes!  This change makes them crazy!

I believe ANY group of kids can do ANY of the different STEM challenges that are out there.  Adjusting each challenge to meet the needs of their students is up to the classroom teacher.

Finding the perfect balance of frustration and success during a STEM challenge is so important!

Click here to grab a FREE and FUN STEM Challenge to do with your students the first week of school!

Get those kids engineering right away this fall!

Crocodile Day isn't an official worldwide holiday, but it could be a fun theme day for learning or celebrating crocodiles—amazing reptiles that live in rivers, lakes, and swamps!  

This year it is celebrated on June 17th!

🐊 Crocodile Day – A Day to Learn About and Celebrate Crocodiles!

What is a crocodile?

A crocodile is a big reptile with rough, scaly skin, a long tail, and lots of sharp teeth. Crocodiles live near water and are great swimmers. They are one of the oldest animals on Earth!

Making actual size alligators and crocodiles is a great way to celebrate this day!  We used bulletin board paper, tape measures, and researched the different types of alligators and crocodiles sizes!

Click here to check out this product in my tpt store!

Learning about the RMS Titanic is always a topic my students are interested in each year!  We read an informational book about the Titanic and the I Survived graphic novel about the Titanic disaster.  We also complete a few science labs about salt and ice and the kids are always amazed!

This lab answers the question of:  Which amount of salt will melt the ice cube the fastest, a pinch, a teaspoon, or a tablespoon?

It requires easy to find and cheap materials and the kids are usually surprised!

The students had three bowls, three ice cubes, and some salt for the lab.  We used measuring spoons to measure out the right amount of salt.

The students were surprised by our results after five minutes!  There are four labs in the pack.  We did them over the course of a week.

You can find this set of labs in my blog store or in my tpt store for just $2!  Click here for the link to the item in my tpt store.

Capture your students' interest and learn a little about the Titanic as we approach the date this disaster occurred on April 15th.

Looking for something fun to do with your class this spring?  Why not try a set of 8 quick STEM challenges in your classroom?

This set uses plastic eggs and a few other supplies like small cups, tape, tape measures, boxes, and tubs of water.  Most teachers can find these other items around their classroom or school building.

I buy one bag of plastic eggs for each team.  I grab the plastic eggs at the Dollar Tree.

We do all of these challenges in a day, but you could also do them over the course of a few days or a week.  Student teams then add their numbers together to get a total score for their team!

The pack includes challenge cards and a score sheet to use for each team.  I give my students a chance to practice before we set the timer for a minute.

We do many of these quick challenges in our classroom and we do a few outside.

There will be more of these added to my store soon...

Keep your kids excited and engaged until the end of the school year, and get them working together as a team!

Challenge your students today!  If your students need more time, feel free to increase the minute to 2 or even 3 minutes!  Do what works for your kids and your classroom!

What can your kids get done in a short period of time?

Looking for something fun to do on this STEM holiday?  This one is a lot of fun and uses supplies you already have in your classroom!

We work in table teams for this STEM challenge.  Just crumple up 20 sheets of paper and use these paper balls to build a tower.  There is a limited amount of tape for this challenge, so be sure to use it wisely.  The crumpled up paper balls will need to be taped together for this construction of the tower!

You can use as much time as you need for this challenge!  In our classroom we usually use about 45 minutes. 

November 8th is the perfect day to do some engineering!

- Smart Chick 

Learning to write a hypothesis is always a challenge for my students.  I found these amazing color changing animals on Amazon and thought these may provide an engaging and fun way to learn more about writing a hypothesis!

I have created a pack using these color changing animals.  The pack has three posters:

What is a Hypothesis?

A Good Hypothesis...

Things to Think About...

They come in black and white and with a rainbow background color.

The color change animals come in a few different forms.  These include alligators, lizards, dinosaurs, and sea animals.  Our school mascot is an alligator, so that is the one I chose to use!  You can do these labs with just one box of 12 animals, or you can use a couple of boxes!  

Students begin by testing the animal in cold and warm water.

These animals are about 6 inches long and come in multiple colors!  

Heat, or warm water, makes them change color.  Holding them in your hand firmly for a few minutes will also cause them to change color.

The last lab in the pack has students try to figure out another way to change the color, like exposure to sunlight, etc.

They are really fun to play with in the classroom science class!

You can choose a lab for cold water and a lab for warm water OR one lab that let's each student group choose a water temperature (cold or warm).

The materials for these labs are really cheap and easy to find!  The color changing animals can be instantly reset to their original color in cold water and they can be reused!

You can purchase the pack in my tpt store or on my blog if you are interested!  Click here to check it out!

 

- Smart Chick

STEM Breaks are something I have been using in my own classroom for years!  These short STEM activities give my students the opportunity to practice skills they will use in our STEM challenges.

Often, I would look through my local dollar store for items to use in STEM Breaks.  I try to do one or two STEM Breaks each week in my own classroom.  We do these in those time periods of the day that occur between our specials classes and lunch or even during indoor recesses.  We often have these 15-20 minute sections of time that we need to fill with lessons, and these STEM Breaks work great.

I have started developing monthly STEM Breaks based on unusual holidays.  Students get to build, create, research, design, and present during these STEM Breaks.  I don't have the time to do all of them, so I just pick the ones I want to use.  The materials for these STEM Breaks should be easy to find and cheap, if you need to purchase them!

The August STEM Breaks pack is in my tpt store.  There is a page for each day of the month.  There is also a chart that tells the teacher what supplies are needed for each of the STEM Breaks!

Use the ones that work best in your classroom!  Kids will learn a lot about the STEM way of thinking with these.

Eventually, I will have the year complete and I plan on bundling them.  You can also buy each month separately, but the bundle will save money!

If you have purchased other months already, I can send months for free so you can also enjoy the bundle price.

I am working on finishing the rest of the months of STEM Breaks this summer so stay tuned!

Smart Chick