National STEM Day is celebrated every year on November 8th!  This is a great day to do a STEM challenge in your classroom!

I make a challenge to use on this day every year!  This year's challenge uses index cards and masking tape.  Click here to check it out in my TPT shop!

Grab these materials and get your kids building!  Both items should be cheap and easy to find.  You may already have them in your school supply closet!

Email me (smartchick5712@gmail.com) a picture or two of your completed challenge and I will send you the STEM challenge of YOUR CHOICE!  Just let me know which one you want!

I am always amazed by what my students create!

Day of the Dead is celebrated each year at the beginning of the month of November.  It is a celebration of the loved ones that we have lost where the connection between their world and ours is as close as it can get.

Sharing this amazing holiday with students is always something I look forward to each year.

There are five different challenges included in this pack.  Click here if you want to see the challenge in my TPT shop!

One of our favorite ones is the Name Skeleton Challenge!  Students write their first name in cursive on a folded sheet of white construction paper.  When it is unfolded it creates the skeleton.  Add a skull and they are ready to add various craft supplies.

Name Skeleton Challenge

Materials Needed:

-White construction paper (9 x 12 size)

-Black construction paper (12 x 18 size)

-Colored construction paper (assorted)

-Beads, feathers, and other craft items

We plan on doing this one next week!  Here is a quick pic of one made a few years ago in my classroom!

These look very cool on a bulletin board!  The STEM pack includes the skull to copy.  

A FREE quick idea to go with the Day of the Dead is to have students create a paper flower that can float in a container of water for at least one minute!

This one is tougher than it sounds!  I give each student a sheet of colored cardstock paper, scissors, and 6 inches of masking tape for this challenge!

Candy corn is cheap and easy to find in the fall!  Why not try some STEM challenges using candy corn?

I know candy corn may not be everyone's favorite candy, but it is a cheap and easy to find material to use in STEM challenges in the fall months.

Our One Minute to Finish It activities are so much fun!

There are 8 different one-minute challenges to do in this pack.  Each one uses candy corn and easy to find materials like cups, tape, and paper.

The candy corn can be reused in the different challenges.  

These challenges can be done in the same day, or they can be done over a few days.  There is a recording sheet that can be copied for each team to complete after each challenge.

The scores are added together for a final number.

Click here to check out this pack in my TPT store!  There are a lot of different One Minute to Finish It challenges in my store, so you can always pick another one!  These are great for building teamwork in your classroom!

You can also use candy corn in different STEM engineering challenges.

This pack has three different STEM challenges using candy corn.

The 3 Challenges are:

1. Candy Corn Tower

2. Candy Corn Structure

3. Candy Corn Cob Stack

Click here to check out this pack of 3 STEM Challenges!  

You can have parents donate a bag of candy corn or you can purchase them yourself at the grocery store or the dollar store.  (The Jelly Belly brand of candy corn doesn't have any gelatin in it.)

Why not try some MATH with candy corn?  We do a Math Mat every Friday.  Some of these use candy, food, or fruit, and others use different math manipulatives.

I copy these onto a sheet of 11 x 17 copy paper for my own classroom.

They are great for math review.  There are a lot of these to choose from in my TPT store.  Quite a few of them are FREE!

Click here to check out this one!

Looking for a FREE October Math Mat?  Grab this FREE one for Halloween Fruit Snacks.  Any type of fruit snacks will work!

Enjoy your fall with some STEM challenges!

My favorite part about STEM learning is that you can use so many cheap and easy to find materials for the different challenges and activities.  

There are a lot of different STEM challenges you can do using paper cups.  These cups can be just about any size.  I keep a box of 300 paper cups in my classroom all the time.  I have a set I bought on Amazon three years ago that I am still using in my intermediate classroom.  Click here to grab this set of 300 paper cups for about $22.  You can also find paper cups at your local grocery or dollar store.

We build a lot of different towers, structures, and pyramids with paper cups in our classroom.  Balancing different sizes and weights of objects on top of these adds to the challenge.

These One Minute to Finish It challenges are a quick and easy way to build teamwork in your classroom.

You can do these in one day or over the course of several days.

The kids need very few materials for all of the challenges included in this pack.  

They are meant to be done quickly, but you can always extend the time limit if that works better for your classroom.

Click here to check it out in my TPT store.

Cup stacking is another fun thing to do in your classroom.  These challenges are so engaging.  The kids have to deal with the challenge of stacking and unstacking the cups AND that panicked feeling of the timer.

These are sold individually as well.  Click here to see the 3-challenge bundle.

Copycat STEM challenges are another fun way to get kids thinking.  

In these challenges, the kids have to copy a paper cup tower that either the teacher or a group of students have built.

This is actually more challenging than you may think.

Click here to see it!

Every think of adding a take home STEM challenge to your classroom?

My families LOVE these challenges.  I try to do one a month in my own intermediate classroom.  

These take-home challenges give families a chance to work together as a team.  My kids get so excited about sharing their results with the rest of the class.

In this challenge families need to build the tallest possible paper cup tower.

Click here to check out the paper cup take-home challenge to see if it may work in your classroom!

There are so many different ways you can use paper cups in your classroom!  Click here to see even more paper cup activities and challenges!

STEM challenges can be done with cheap and easy to find materials!  Why not try using paper cups in your classroom?

 Paper plates are cheap and easy to find materials for an assortment of STEM challenges and activities!

Kids can build things like towers, bridges, and 3D shapes with paper plates.  The plates can be folded, cut, rolled, or torn.  They are cheap and easy to find.  Why not try to build a 3D haunted house out of paper plates this fall?  

This pack of 5 STEM engineering challenges uses paper plates in a variety of ways!

All you need is a large pack of paper plates and a few other supplies.  Many of which you should be able to find at school!

Paper plates can be cut, rolled, folded, or torn in a number of ways.  These challenges get them thinking!

While these STEM engineering challenges are a lot of fun, the Minute to Finish It pack using paper plates is really engaging.

Click here to check out the pack!

These 8 quick STEM challenges can be done in a single day or over the course of a few days!  The kids form a team and then do 8 different activities with paper plates and a few other materials.

One of my favorite activities from this pack is the Plate Flipping!

Can your team flip and catch the highest number of paper plates using just one hand?

Materials (per team):

-1 paper plate per person

-timer

Click here to check out this pack in my TPT store!

Do your students like emojis?

Why not try to make some paper plate emojis in this STEM challenge?

This is a challenge that my kids always want to do more than once!

Click here to check out this challenge.

What are some of your favorite materials to use for STEM activities and challenges?  I am always looking for cheap and easy to find materials for the STEM challenges and activities that I create for my own classroom!

Time to try some STEM challenges and activities in your classroom!

I am always interested in finding new items and ideas for my classroom space!  Working in a large, urban district means we have little funding for our classrooms and have to provide most of it ourselves, which is one of the BIG reasons I began creating lessons for TPT.

Click here for a link to my Amazon storefront.

If you have ANY items you absolutely LOVE, please share!  I am always looking for good ideas!

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Smart Chick

This year I am focusing on one STEM area each month!  September is going to be all about TOWERS!

While I wish we could do STEM every single day, there are other things I need to teach in my 5th grade classroom.  This is the schedule I am going to try my best to keep for the month of September.  We may work on some of the topics for more than one day throughout the week.  Figure out what will work for your classroom!

I am going to dedicate a bulletin board in my classroom to my STEM theme each month.  This bulletin board will have the vocabulary words, informational pages, and hopefully pictures of the challenges we do throughout the month.  I also plan on hanging this calendar up to hold myself accountable for doing these different activities and challenges!

I use my Towers pack for the bulletin board.  Click here to see it in my tpt store.  These theme packs can be found in either my tpt store or my blog store if you are interested.

I bundled all of the TOWER resources I am planning on using during the month of September at a reduced cost.  There are 10 tower resources included in this bundle!  Grab the September calendar for free in the PREVIEW file for this bundle!  Click here to check out the bundle for September!

Why not try a STEM focus area each month this year?