Playing with STEM: Weather

Hi Everyone! This program is called Playing with STEM. It is a STEM program for 2-5 year olds. It is primarily play, because at that age, I just want to make science, technology, engineering and math fun!

In this program we learned about weather. There were stations all around the room that the kids visit with their parents. Each station had a sign to give some instructions and a fun fact. Here are the weather stations:

Wonderful Wind
The children used a fan to direct wind on pinwheels and streamers.

Rainbows
The children looked through rainbow glasses and refraction gratings to see rainbows in the lights. The also built a rainbow with blocks.

Puddle Jumping
The children’s active station was puddle jumping. Puddles were blue or had instructions like dance or jump. There were clouds with rain hanging from the ceiling.

Bolts of Lightning
This station had a “Luminglass” which is a piece of art that has electricity bolts going through it. It responds to sound and touch. These are rare, so instead use a Plasma Ball.

Build with Snow
The children used Steve Spangler Snow powder to play and build. We made the snow a little wetter than suggested so it felt more like real snow. A little messy but fun. Link here.

Weather Posters
The children used stickers on posters.

Rainsticks
The children decorated rainsticks and listened to high quality rainsticks. This craft was too difficult to assemble for this young age.

Tornado Bottles
The children observed tornados in bottles.

Weather Counting
The children practiced their counting with pictures of weather and rain or snow gauges.

Thermometers
The children learned about how thermometers work using these “hand boilers”. When the children hold the bottle on top of their hand, the liquid runs up to the top. It can be found here. I put padding under the bottles since they are glass.