Bridge Builders

How did the engineer cross the river? By building themselves a bridge!

Materials Needed

Household items for building bridges, such as:

    • Bottles or cans
    • Paper
    • Cardboard or cardboard boxes
    • Corks
    • String
    • Tape
    • Books
    • Pens
    • Natural materials
    • Something to represent a river: water in plastic container, blue cloth or a hand drawn picture
    • Stuffed animals, toys, or other small items to test your bridge with

Tips for Adults

  • Before your child starts building, prompt them to think about what they already know about bridges. What are the different components? What are bridges designed to do? Ask them how they could recreate those elements with the materials around them.
  • Talk through the different materials available, and what the benefits of each might be. What would be the difference between using cardboard versus paper? How might the shape of a cork play a role in their overall design?

Fibonacci Day

On November 23 every year is it Fibonacci Day. It’s named after an Italian mathematician in the 13th century.

He’s known for many things, but I’ll give you two them.

The Fibonacci sequence

Put simply, the Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers which begins with 0 and 1. Each number after that is equal to adding the two numbers right before it together. For example, 0+1=1 and 3+5=8 … This gives you a sequence that looks like 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 etc.

Any child who has beginning understanding of addition can get a grip of this sequence.

What makes this sequence so interesting?

Fibonacci numbers can be found in the natural world all around us. Most flowers, for example, will have a number of petals which correspond with the Fibonacci sequence. Irises have three petals whereas wild roses and buttercups have five petals. That is of course, until a petal falls off. No wonder rare four-leaf clovers are seen as lucky!

If you cut into a piece of fruit, you’re likely to find a Fibonacci number there as well, in how the sections of seeds are arranged. Bananas have three sections whilst apples have five.

The Fibonacci sequence even plays a role in the subtle spirals you can see in the seed head of a sunflower.

The Golden Spiral –

Painting the pinecone spiral

Idea taken from the Smart Happy Project

Step One.

Collect your pinecones. Go outdoors. Observe the nature and search under trees and in bushes to find your specimens.

Brush off any leaves and mud. Sometimes they will be quite damp depending on where you are. I don’t really worry about this too much. This is about the immediacy of a natural item becoming art.

Step Two.

Look for the pattern in the pinecone shape.

NOTE: The scales that make up the outline of the pinecone hide the seeds or the pollen under them. If your pinecone has opened it has released this already. If it is tightly packed, then it has still to release. You can use pinecones at either stage.

The scales are arranged in a pattern as they grow out from the central axis. The angle that they sit at to each other tends to be because of efficiency of space. (This is the angle that is referred to as Fibonacci or Golden angle).

We are encouraging our eye to pick out the spiralling line that neighbouring scales create around the shape of the cone. It sounds more complicated than it is.

Step Three

Use one paint colour and paint each scale in the curving line creating a solid spiral that wraps around the pinecone. Any poster or acrylic colour paint will do, just not to drippy as you need to turn the cone in your hand as you work.

I suggest keeping to one colour per line to start with to emphasise the pinecone spiral shape.

You can carry on creating stripes or using different colours as you wish. Sometimes less is more.

Interconnected Spirals

Each cone will have one type of spiral that turns one way (duplicated several times) and another shape of spiral that curves the other direction (again duplicated several times) This is what is known as the interconnected spirals in nature.

After painting your first pinecone spiral line, you can observe the opposite turning spiral and paint that in too, making the interconnected pattern where the two spirals cross over each other. One ‘scale’ will be shared by both spirals so you will need to decide which colour that one is.

 

Balance of power

Will you be able to find the centers of gravity of different objects to gain balance?

Balancing stones.

Phase 1. Material

  • Various objects (for example: ruler, popsicle stick, pencil, brush, stick, spoon)
  • Blue tac or tape

Phase 2 Activity

The activity can be done outdoors or indoors. Children can choose different objects, or the instructor can have ready.

Each person gets to choose an item.

  1. Observe how the object looks, where there may be a point where the object balances on your finger or palm.
  2. You can mark the place with tape or blue tac.
  3. You can place the object on a finger or try to balance on the palm of your hand. Where does the object need to be to keep it balanced on your hand and not fall off?

Was your guess correct or not?

You can try each object in turn to find the balance point. Once you have marked the correct balance point on each object, you can look at it, if the marks are in the same place on all the objects. Are the objects different and why are the markings in different places? Let the children come up with answers and finally tell them about the emphasis.

Phase 3: Why

It’s about the center of gravity. The center of gravity varies depending on the shape of the object. For example, a spoon has one end that is heavier than the other, so the center of gravity is closer to the tip of the spoon, while an ice cream stick has a center of gravity in the middle of the ice cream stick.

 

Activity found from Steam Turku

Steam Turku

APPLE Science

Exploring the 5 senses

YOU WILL NEED:

  • Apple Varieties {5 is a good number!}
  • Knife {adults only for cutting apple slices}
  • Paper Plates
  • Marker
  • Printable Science Sheet
  • Your Senses!

HOW TO SET UP A TASTE TEST EXPERIMENT

  1. Choose your apple types and place each one on a paper plate.
  2. Label the plate with the apple’s name.
  3. Then an adult should use a knife to cut out wedges of apple for everyone.
  4. Time to observe how each apple tastes, smells, feels, and crunches!

LEARN ABOUT THE BODY’S 5 SENSES

This is the perfect opportunity to talk about the body’s five senses!

TOUCH | TASTE | SOUND | SIGHT | SMELL

Get everyone talking about how each apple tastes, smells, feels, and crunches!

Describe what the apple looks like with your sense of sight. What color is the skin? What color is the flesh? What shape is it? Compare the apple colors and sizes.

Describe what the apple feels like with your sense of touch.  What does it feel like?  Does it feel wet or dry?  Smooth or rough? Soft or hard?

Describe what the apple smells like with your sense of smell.  Compare the smell of the different apples.

Then on to the best bit… taste testing each apple!  Describe what the apple tastes like with your sense of taste, and what it sounds like with your sense of sound. Close your eyes when you are taste testing and see if that makes a difference observing.

STEM Scavenger Hunts

Some scavenger hunts can always be a fun way to test and see if the children has a conception of the subject matter.

I have found two good ones:

STEM-Building-Challenge-and-Scavenger-Hunt-Frugal-Coupon-Living (PDF 281 kB) This one includes some building challenges also. It was found from Frugal Coupon Living where you can find a whole lot of other resources.

The other one is a JPG. (Click on it for more proper size)

STEM-Scavenger hunt

Graph of the week

Make a card for each child – why not let them draw themselves?

It doesn’t matter if you make a nice board like the one belowor just stick them up with blue tac.

And, when all have put up their picture can you summarize it on a separate sheet:

Ideas for graphs:

  • How did you get to school?
  • How many letters are in your name?
  • What is your favorite color?
  • My favorite weather is…
  • What fruit do you like most?
  • How are you feeling today?
  • What kind of pet do you have?
  • What color is your hair?
  • What vegetable do you dislike the most?
  • When you grow up would you rather be…
  • What chore do you do at home?
  • What is the first thing you do in the morning?
  • Who woke you up today?
  • What do you like to drink?
  • What is your favorite kind of game?
  • Who cooks most meals in your home?
  • What do you put on your pancakes?
  • What is your favorite 2D shape?
  • What would you most like to meet?
  • What is your favorite winter sport?
  • What do you put on your cocoa?
  • What is your favorite art tool?
  • What pet would you most like to have?
  • What is your favorite 3D shape?
  • How many people are in your family?
  • What is your favorite holiday?
  • What is your favorite recess activity?
  • How many syllables are in your name?
  • What is your favorite treat?
  • What do you love most about spring?
  • What is your favorite flower color?
  • What is your favorite ice cream?
  • What is your favorite bug?
  • I think worms are…
  • I would most like to ride in a…
  • What pet would you like most?
  • What is your favorite barbecue food?
  • What is your favorite water sport?
  • What popsicle did you pick?
  • What was your favorite school event?
  • What is your favorite season?
  • Would you rather meet an…
  • How are you going home today?

Natural STEM Challenge

Challenge

Build a sculpture, make a picture, or design a mandala with nature. Can you make a self-portrait or build a sculpture?

Instructions

Try to use as many natural items as possible such as sticks, leaves, rocks, bark, reeds, and anything else you have around the area! Go on a nature hunt and take a paper bag to collect goodies.

You may need to sparingly use string or twine, but please remember not to litter and bring these extra supplies back inside! Do your best not to use any man-made materials!

Encourage kids to not pick leaves off trees or break branches off of trees! Use items that are already on the ground as much as possible!

Pop corn and Density

 You will need:

  • A plastic container with a lid
  • Unpopped pop corn
  • A large marble
  • A ping pong ball

Implementation

  • Put the ping pong ball at the bottom of the container.
  • The fill the container about 2/3 of the way with corn.  Make sure that the ping pong ball stays at the bottom.  Then place the marble on top.
  • Put the lid on and shake it up!  It doesn’t matter if you shake it up and down or side to side… Just shake!  It won’t take much.

Ta da!  The marble has turned into a ping pong ball!

The Science

The ping pong ball is much less dense than the corn, so it quickly makes its way to the top of the corn.  The marble is more dense than the corn, so it sinks down into the corn.  This is the same concept as the ping pong ball floating in water – the ball is less dense than the water, so it floats.  Everyone expects a ping pong ball to float in water, but the way it behaves in the corn is really fascinating!