Build a Climbing Santa Paper Craft

Christmas is right around the corner. It's been raining CONSTANTLY here and we've been keeping busy with games, movies, and a lot of crafts. Today, I'm sharing a really fun Christmas craft. This climbing paper Santa toy is the perfect DIY STEM building craft to keep hands and minds busy. Preschool, elementary, and even middle school-aged children will enjoy designing their own Santa and then watching him climb up the chimney. Best part about this activity - I'll bet you have all the materials available for an crafty afternoon of fun.

How to Build an Easy Climbing Paper Santa with Kids

4 Kits to create your own DIY Summer STEM + Robotics Camp

Love the idea of sending kids to summer STEM and Robotics camps... but not the prices? I get you! We love doing easy science and STEM activities at home. This past summer, we considered sending my eldest to some robotics camps, but then realized that they just weren't in our budget. So, instead, we set up our own STEM and Robotics camps... at home by purchasing a couple of STEM/ Robotics kits and building them together. Here's a quick review of the 4 kits that we tried out!

A Review of 4 STEM and Robotics Kits 

This post contains affiliate links.  This means I make a small bit of money for any purchases made through the links at no additional cost to you.  Thank you for your support.  For my full disclosure policy, click here.

Free Printable Halloween Agamographs

Ever heard of agamographs? It's optical illusion art that changes depending on how you look at it. I saw this idea first on STEAM powered family. With Halloween coming around, I thought I'd make a coloring sheet agamograph that kids of all ages could try. This would be a perfect after-school activity! No cutting or gluing involved. Just print out the free coloring sheet below, color it in, accordian fold it, and voila! A cool piece of op art!

Free Printable Halloween Agamographs

Tape Resist Dinosaur Bone Art (And our favorite 10+ Dinosaur Books!)

I love it when an art and science combine to create a beautiful and easy kids STEM project. When I was growing up science, math, and art were always treated as fairly different topics.  And I get why they taught us that way... it's easier and we get to dig down deep into each one.  But I wish that my kid self also experienced how all three things topics were linked.  Don't artist use math and science when making art?  Isn't there beauty in math and science? Certainly!  And so my inner nerd and artist gets very excited when my son and I do a project that touches on what seem to be different areas.

Ok... but I digress.  Recently my son and I visited our local natural history museum's dinosaur exhibit and marveled at the size and design of t-rex bones.  (Gosh.  Those are some ferocious creatures!  So glad they don't live today.  Eeek.)  So, inspired by that visit and this awesome human skeleton tape resist painting idea, we made our own very beautiful and scientific tape resist dinosaur bone skeleton paintings! 

Tape Resist Dinosaur Bone Paintings 

This post contains affiliate links.  This means that I make a tiny bit of money whenever you purchase something through the links at no additional cost to you.  Thank you so much for the extra grocery money!  For my full disclosure policy, click here.

40+ Projects that combine STEM with Art!

Seems like everyone's talking about the importance of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) these days. And hey, I get it.  We live in a highly technological world that's rapidly advancing in all sorts of new ways.   We want our kids to be be creative and adaptive problem solvers.

But maybe you're like me and you deeply love arts and crafts.  They're your jam.  And maybe you're unsure how to dive into all this STEAM goodness.  Hey, I get that too.  Hopefully today's post will help.  In this post I sharing over 40 ideas for arts and craft projects that also happen to incorporate STEM ideas.  Yup.  Here are some of my favorite artsy crafty posts...which also happen to have a little STEAM-y oomph to them!

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Preschool Science: Let's Make Charts!

While I enjoy making things with Chuck, I'm also always looking for easy ways to incorporate mathematics and science into our daily activities too.   I loved math and science as a child, so I'd love it if he appreciated those subjects too.  Since he's only 3, our activities have to very pretty hands-on and relevant to his interests (like our shape dice,  cardboard bridges, and shape touch and find activities.)  We love taking walks outside.  So I incorporated science and math into our walk and created this chart to help us count the number of different things in our neighborhood. 

STEM ACTIVITY:  Make Charts With Preschoolers!

This was a super easy STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) activity to do with my preschooler.  It required very little prep and we practiced our observation, counting, and data analysis skills in the process!

Here's how we did the activity!

DIY Recycled CD Hovercraft Toy

Does your child enjoy tinkering and building? Why not try making this recycled hovercraft? All you need are a few items from around the house, and you've got yourself a fun, family STEM project. Directions below! (Watch a video of the hovercraft flying on my IG account.)

How to Make a DIY Recycled CD Hovercraft Toy With Kids

Preschool Weather Science: How can we stay dry?

I'm always looking for really easy ways to help Chuck learn science and math concepts.   We've been fighting colds these past two weeks, so activities that are easy to throw together and take little time to prep have been on the top of my list.  That's probably why I really appreciate good ebooks like STEAM: Preschool Activities for STEM Enrichment  (affiliate link). It's co-authored by one of my blogging buddies, Jamie from Handmade Kids Art and contains over 30+ simple and fun ways you can teach young children about science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics!

I recently received a free copy to review and ear-marked several ideas that I'd like to try out with Chuck.  Inspired by one activity in the book, here's a fun Preschool Science activity that we did to look at how we stay dry during the rain.

Easy Preschool Science:  How can we stay dry during the rain?

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Free Printable Fall Agamographs

Did you grab our printable Halloween Agamographs last week? They were such a hit that I made these fall agamographs for you to print out and make with the kids. The free printable is down below! Print, color , and accordian fold them for some easy kid-friendly STEAM-filled fun!

Free Printable Fall Agamographs

(A super easy and fun STEM activity for kids of all ages!)

Can you explode a Watermelon?

How many rubber bands does it take to explode a watermelon? That's a question that I issue to you, dear reader.  And it's one that we recently tried tackling in today's fun science activity!   Now, I'm not a mom who enjoys making a mess... but when I saw people exploding watermelons with rubber bands, I just couldn't help myself.  We had to try the challenge too!  So, we celebrated the end of summer with this explosive science activity.   It was super duper fun and so, so easy to set up. 

Here's how you Explode a Watermelon with kids!

Note:  This post contains affiliate links.  This means I make a small bit of change when you purchase items through the links.  Thank you for your support and the grocery money! For my full disclosure policy, click here.

Free Printable Christmas Agamograph

Christmas is right around the corner! And while we've yet to decorate the house in Christmas decor, I've already started dreaming of fun Christmas crafts to do with the kids. If you're looking for an easy printable that kids can color and fold for the holidays, this agamograph is it! This would make the perfect quick after-school activity, library activity, or classroom activity. Download the free sheets below and enjoy!

Free Printable Christmas Agamographs

Make your own gummy candies

Did you know that you can make your own gummy candies?  I didn't know that it could be done so easily until I saw this fruit juice gummy candy recipe on Instructables. 

Last week I roped my sister into trying the recipe out.  Using just four ingredients, we made homemade gummy candies in a  little over an hour.  Here are our results:

Ingredients:

• 2 envelopes of Knox Original Unflavored Gelatine
• 1 tablespoon of sugar (or more if you want them sweeter)
• 1 C of juice
• Canola oil

Directions:
1.  Combine gelatine, sugar, and juice in a pot.  Let the mixture sit there for a minute.

2.  Lightly oil your mold.  (If you skip this part your gummy candies will break apart as they pop out of the molds.)

3.  Bring the mixture to a boil.  Let it boil for 10 minutes.  The liquid will become more viscous.

4.  Spoon the hot liquid it into your molds.
 Notes:

• I placed my mold on top of a plate before I did this to catch my spills.
• I had some extra liquid, so I lined a glass baking dish with saran wrap and then poured the liquid into that.  Once the liquid hardened, it was easy to pop out a very large gummy candy.  

  5.  Put your mold into the fridge until your candies harden.  (Mine took about 1 hour to solidify.)

6.  Pop your gummies out and enjoy!



Can you believe that the recipe worked?  I was super stoked because the resulting gummies had a great texture and easily slid out of their molds.  I also liked that they weren't too sweet.  Next time I'll probably try using fruit juice concentrate instead of juice (as recommended by the original recipe.)  That should give them a more intense flavor.... and maybe they'll taste more like the store bought ones.

Happy Wednesday!

Grow Crystal Geode Eggs with Kids

Do you love geodes? My kids adore sparkly rocks and for this Easter craft, we tried our hand and made sparkly geode Easter eggs.  (Or maybe you could call them dragon eggs? Oooh, I love the sound of that.) Aren't they beautiful? Directions for making them are below!

How to Grow Crystal Eggs with Kids

(An easy and fun kids' science STEM project)

This post contains affiliate links.  This means I make a small portion off of any purchases made through the links at no additional cost to you.  Thank you for the grocery money!  For my full disclosure policy, click here.

DIY Dandelion Crown

What are your thoughts on dandelions?  Love em?  Hate em?  Since we live in the city and I don't do any yard work, I love the little suckers.  Their bright yellow color always cheers me up.  So dandelions can sprout anywhere as long as I'm concerned.  Like his mama, Chuck adores these little yellow flowers too.  He picks them from our neighbor's yard (shh, don't tell them!)  And he loves blowing them once they turn all white and poofy (again, shhhh, don't tell the neighbors... but they're probably going to get a bumper crop of dandelions next year.)  Because we both love these yellow flowers, I had to make a dandelion flower crown for Chuck. 

How to Make a Dandelion Flower Crown

Full confession here- I'm an impatient crafter... so this DIY dandelion crown was right up my alley. It only took a couple of minutes to make and then voila!  My son now has a crown fit for a little story tale prince.  Let's get crafting!

Kid Science: Let's Study Seeds

Are you looking for ways to incorporate science into your child's daily life?   Lately Chuck's been really enjoying the television show Sid the Science Kid.  I typically work beside him while he watches tv, but dang it, that show hooks me in EVERY TIME.  They make science so accessible for little kids (and adults too, apparently.)  Plus, I love how they encourage children to be curious, observe, and explore their world. Thanks to Sid, I'm now trying to do some really easy science activities at home with Chuck too.  In fact, here's one fun activity that we recently did together- we studied seeds!

Kid STEM Activity:  Seed Study!

DIY Toy Launcher!

With the nights still being quite long, we often find ourselves stuck inside twiddling our thumbs... and going kinda bonkers.  :)  So one day we took matters into our own hands, and our family worked together to tinker and turn a long, narrow box into a DIY Toy Launcher!

DIY Cardboard Toy Launcher

This post contains affiliate links.  Thank you for your support!

It's really amazing how many moving types of toys you can make from with rubber bands!  The stretchiness of the rubber bands provides ample opportunities for fun STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) activities and crafts.  (For example, we've made this DIY Rocket Launcher, this DIY Paper Slingshot, and this Cardboard car... that uses potential and kinetic energy to MOVE using rubber bands!)  

Piranha Plant Valentine Card box

Note: This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.

Recently Plaid Crafts sent samples of craft paint and Mod Podge to a couple of craft bloggers.  They challenged us to create funky, fun, and unique Valentine Card Boxes.  Paint?  Mod Podge?  Fun Card Boxes?  Oh yeah.  You can bet that I was all over this challenge to celebrate Valentine's Day with Plaid Crafts!

Ok.  So it's been a zillion years awhile since I've been in school.  I really wanted to make a box inspired by my own childhood, so I went old school and made a Piranha Plant Valentine Card Box.  (I think my younger self would have totally dug it.)

Piranha Plant Valentine Card Box

Special promotion code from Plaid:

Before I forget, Plaid Craft is offering a special coupon promo code.  If you use the discount code LOVE2015, you'll receive $10 off orders over $35, plus free shipping*.  You can save on tons of Plaid brands like Apple Barrel, Mod Podge, Martha Stewart Crafts, and more.  The code is valid through 3/31/2015 and can only be used once.  Just visit their site for more details!  *Free shipping is not available in areas where ground shipping is not offered. 

Printing with Flowers

Do you have wilting flowers?  Before tossing them away, why not try making some flower prints with them?   Chuck and I dipped flower heads in paint and made some lovely prints.  Then, once the prints dried, I turned them into some personalized, springy stationary.

So don't throw away your Valentine's Day flowers just yet.  Keep them and make some cards! 

Orange Peel Canola Oil Candle

Did you ever watch MacGyver?  I was introduced to the show by an older cousin, and I loved it. MacGyver was my hero.  Give him a paper clip and he could do anything, unlock handcuffs, start a car, or even disarm a bomb.


Last week, I definitely channeled my childhood hero when I made this orange peel candle:

Can you believe that it was only made out of two materials?  1.Orange peel and 2. Canola oil.   Yup.  That's it.  Super duper easy and it stayed lit for over an hour. 

Materials:

• Orange
• Knife
• Cutting Board
• Canola Oil (or probably any oil, really...)
• Lighter

Directions:

1.  Slice around the circumference of your orange, trying your best to not slice the fruit inside.  Then, use your finger to carefully peel off the two halves.  One half should have a white membrane stem sticking out of it.   Keep that stem intact! It's going to act as your candle's wick.  The other half will become a decorative "hat."

2.  Cut a design out of the half without the wick.  Now you've got a little "hat" for your candle.  (Note:  This hat is more for looks than function.  It makes a pretty light design, but ends up getting quickly singed by the flame.)

3.  Pour oil into the bottom half with the "wick."  Then, light the "wick."  It'll take a little while for the stem to light, but once it does, you've got yourself a lovely, long lasting candle.

 Happy MacGyvering!

Build Your Own Unique Wooden Car

Ever since my eldest son was young, he LOVED cars.  Is your child that way too?  Then you'll understand why we've done a ton of car crafts over here on the blog.  And boy are you in for a treat with today'd post.  Tada!  My husband and son designed and built their very own wooden car... for free!

  Let's Build A Wooden Car!

This post contains affiliate links.  Thank you for the grocery money!  For my full disclosure policy, click here.