The holiday season is just around the corner. This means decorations, tasty treats, and themed science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities for kids! The holidays are a great way to put a fun twist on your child’s STEM learning. Through fun and festive activities and kits, parents and educators can make improving STEM literacy an exciting part of their classroom or at-home learning experience.
In this article, you will find a curated list of holiday STEM activities for children of all ages. Broken down by grade band/age, there is something for every child, regardless of their current skill level and interests.
Christmas STEM Activities for Preschoolers
Long-Lasting Gingerbread Ornaments
Creating Christmas ornaments is a great Christmas activity for children of all ages. This disguised learning activity allows students to express their creativity and play while learning fundamental science. This activity introduces preschool age children to measuring, creating mixtures, cook times, and other important entry level STEM skills.
Learn more about this activity at STEAMsation
Christmas Skittles STEM Activity
The Christmas Skittles activity, a holiday spin off of the traditional Skittles activity, is an easy to implement experiment to get children thinking critically. This learning activity touches on various science objectives of different complexities, which means this lesson can be repeated and made more difficult as students improve their understanding.
Learn more about this activity at Little Bin Little Hands
Christmas Santa STEM Activity
Turn your children or students into Engineers this holiday season with a STEM challenge. In this lesson, children are tasked with building Santa a sleigh, a fence for Rudolph and the other reindeer, and so much more! This introduces students to the Engineering Design Process (EDP) as they work through building their structure and troubleshooting how to improve what they have built.
Learn more about this activity at Teachers Pay Teachers
Ribbon & Bell Chimes STEM Projects
This STEM project is simple, cheap, and easy to implement at home or in the classroom. However, do not let the simplicity fool you – children love this multi-sensory Christmas STEM project. Using glue, staples, ribbons, and bells, children are tasked with designing and creating their own wind chime that can be hung around the house this holiday season.
Learn more about this activity at Preschool Powol Packets
Dancing Jingle Bells Christmas Science
Using only three supplies, children (and parents!) watch their jingle bells dance around their mason jar. The jingle bells, in this case raspberries, teach children about density and reactions as they move around the soda. The reaction causes the raspberries bounce off each other, creating the visually appealing activity kids will love. This experiment is easy to implement, making it perfect for the busy family who still wants to make STEM a part of their holiday break!
Learn more about this activity at Modern Preschool
Lego Parachute Coffee Filter Activity
It is easy to turn almost any STEM activity into a Christmas themed STEM activity. The Lego Parachute Coffee Filter activity is a perfect example of this! In this lesson, children use coffee filters to create parachutes to help their lego men/women land on the ground safely. For the Christmas twist, children can decorate the parachute, dress up their Lego people, or create a winter wonderland where the parachute has to land.
Learn more about this activity at Hunny I’m Home
Peppermint Holiday Slime
Slime is a great addition to any classroom curriculum or at-home day of learning. Children love to create their own slime and continue to play with it afterward. This peppermint holiday slime is perfect for the holiday break leading up to Christmas to get children excited about the holiday season and learning!
Learn more about how to implement this at home by watching Couponing Stacy’s YouTube video.
Christmas STEM Activities for Kindergarten to Second Grade Students
Jingle Bell Engineering Challenge
In this STEM activity, children are tasked with building structures using only Play Dough and Jingle Bells. This lesson promotes children exercising their critical thinking and problem solving skills through the Engineering Design Process (EDP).
Learn more about this activity at STEAMsational
Flying Reindeer STEM Activity
The Flying Reindeer STEM activity comes with a worksheet parents or educators to help children track their data on how far their reindeer has flown. This activity is great to do with siblings, family members, and friends, and can be used to create fun, healthy competition through the STEM lesson.
(Hint: Encourage children to think about how hard they blow into their straw, the angle they begin at, etc.)
Learn more about this activity at JDaniel4’s Mom
Make a Snow Storm in a Jar
In this STEM activity, children mimic a winter blizzard in their mason jar by creating chemical reactions. This lesson will also introduce children to density and how it impacts substances when they are interacting with each other. Using under $10 in materials, this activity is great for getting children excited about the holiday season while introducing them to core STEM concepts.
Learn more about this activity at Honey & Lime
Fizzing Candy Canes STEM Project
In this activity, children will place baking soda and candy canes in a shallow pan or dish. Once they are ready to see the candy canes fizz, add vinegar on top of the whole mixture. Children will watch the candy canes fizz and smell the peppermint as the chemical reaction takes place.
Learn more about how to implement this activity by watching this step-by-step YouTube video.
Christmas STEM Activities for Third to Fifth Grade Students
Santa’s Sleigh Automation
Using hand-cranked automation, children will help Santa’s sleigh fly through the night sky. This Christmas STEM activity will allow children to exercise their creativity while learning more about engineering and technology.
Learn more about this activity at KiwiCo
Christmas Coding STEM Challenge
In the Little Bins Little Hands Christmas Coding STEM Challenge, children will learn about the binary alphabet while crafting a simple Christmas tree ornament. This hands-on coding lesson will increase comprehension of the coding alphabet, as well as giving children a fun, positive experience with code!
Learn more about this activity at Little Bins Little Hands
Christmas STEM Challenges with Play Dough Bundle
The Christmas PlayDough STEM Challenge by Teachers Pay Teachers helps children exercise their fine motor skills, problem solving, creativity, engineering design thinking, collaboration skills, and critical thinking skills. This easy to implement Christmas lesson has the potential to improve students’ STEM literacy skills while giving them the opportunity to improve their 21st century skills.
Learn more about this activity at Teachers Pay Teachers
Christmas Lights Homemade Snow Globe
This at home snow globe will jumpstart the holiday season and give children an opportunity to exercise their creativity. From the design phase to adding liquid to create their own snow globe, children are working on improving their STEAM literacy skills.
Learn more about this activity at The Soccer Mom Blog
Circuit Christmas Tree STEM Project
The Circuit Christmas Tree project puts a fun holiday spin on the classic circuit project. With adult supervision, children will learn about how electricity travels, by identifying conductors. Once the children have completed the lesson successfully, there will be a beautiful, bright Christmas tree!
Learn more about this activity at STEAM Powered Family
Learn More about STEM with STEM Sports®
As parents, it can be difficult to keep up with the constantly changing education and STEM landscape. There are frequent changes to the approach, curriculum, and focal points. At STEM Sports®, we aim to continue to inform parents, educators, and facilitators about all things STEM education.
To learn more about STEM education in and out of the classroom, read the following blogs:
