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 leaves in the fall. I repeated this program this year and added four new stations. 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 leaf stations:
New 2024: Leaf Sensory Bin
The children have been loving our sensory bins from IKEA. This time we used colored rice, leaves, pine cones, leaf noodles and acorns.
New 2024: Leaf Attributes
The children matched the leaves to the correct type (color) or size. The leaves were printed from Thingiverse on my 3D printer.
New 2024: Sums to 10
For a math station, the children matched the found the leaf that made the equation total 10.
New 2024: Leaf Puzzles
I found several puzzles in our system with leaves to work on leaf types.
Leaves for Lunch
We collected a bunch of our herbivore puppets and allowed the children to play with them to eat leaves.
Leaves Drinking
In this experiment, the children could see how leaves absorb water through their stems.
Bok Choy leaves were placed in colored water. It took about of hour for the dye to go up to the ends of the leaves.
Fall Leaf Color Changes
One of the mysteries of fall is why leaves change color. For our activity, the children erased the green off the leaves to see what was underneath. I made print outs of leaves, laminated the paper, then colored over the top of the leaves with dry erase marker.
Summer/Fall/ Winter Trees
Almost all kids love sticker, so for this station we made large posters of trees. The stickers were cut on the Silhouette machine in multiple colors. The children matched the leaf to the correct tree.
Leaves Under the Magnifying Glass
There were many different types of leaves and the children could look at the different leaf parts with them.
Leaf Symmetry
Some leaves show symmetry, so we had two piece puzzles for the children to use their math skills to match them up.
Leaf Rubbing
The children could make leaf art by placing white paper over the leaves we collected, or the Roylco Rubbing Plates. They rubbed fall colored crayons, without the paper labels, over the top.
Leaf Play
We always try to have a least one active station since preschool children have a lot of energy. This time it was leaf play. The children could throw around the leave and collect them in buckets. We were worried about the mess, but one lovely family cleaned them all up for us!
Leaf Sticker Art
We used fall leaves stickers for a craft project. The children were challenged to use only one type of leaf on their tree background.
Leaf Building
The children used this building set to build a tree with leaves and berries.
Leaf Identification
For Technology, the children could use the Seek app to identify leaves we had available for them. They took a picture, then the app would identify the leaf. It will also identify printed pictures, so we had a few of those as well to add variety.
We had a great turnout for this program, and we are getting a great following!
If you have any questions or want to use some of my resources, leave a comment.
Fun for Children at the Library 