10 March STEM Activities That Will Keep Your Students Engaged!
Isn’t this the time of year where teachers and students begin counting down the days to spring break? Not anymore! Get excited about these March STEM activities!
1. Explore story elements and theater by creating a puppet.
Start your March off with Read Across America week. This March STEM activity goes well with Dr. Seuss’ book Wacky Wednesday. Students learn about story elements and how to incorporate them into their writing.
To start, read the story to your students. Then, teach them about story elements like characters, setting, problem, and solution. You’ll also need to point out some rhyming words because they’ll use this later.
After teaching students about the story elements, have them spin to discover the story elements they need for wacky writing. They’ll even spin to find their rhyming pattern!
Once students have identified their story elements, they’ll begin the writing process. Eventually, they’ll plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish their writing. Now comes the fun part… In the end, they’ll get to create a puppet to read aloud the story.
Click HERE to learn more about these March STEM activities for Read Across America Week.
2. Test force and motion by creating a wind-powered dog car!
My dad loves the story Go, Dog, Go! He swears that’s how he learned to read, so I certainly had to add this to the list of March STEM activities!
To start this activity, you’ll need to read Go, Dog, Go. During the reading, model the rhyming words and explore the different locomotives in the story. Afterward, challenge students to create a wind-powered dog car.
You’ll need to have a wind producing object, for instance, a hairdryer works great! There’s a ton of critical thinking involved with this activity and most importantly your students will LOVE it!
3. Explore states of matter with Oobleck.
Let me start off by saying that this STEM activity is MESSY, but that’s not to say you shouldn’t do it! You should definitely do this STEM activity because your students will make abstract learning concrete!
To start this activity, I read aloud Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Then, I place small cups of ingredients on the students’ desks. This includes things like cornstarch, water, glue, flour, and salt. Then, it’s up to the students to create their own recipes for a substance that has properties of a solid and a liquid.
Each year I only have about one or two students who are successful, but that’s okay! They LOVE this activity, and as slime videos on YouTube continue to dominate, my students are getting better and better.
4. Create Pi Day artwork!
Did you know that Pi Day is on March 14? Although you may not teach pi to your students, it’s still an exciting way to get your students to celebrate math.
For this activity, you will need three medium, one large, and four small circles. Then, students will arrange them to create imaginary artwork. Although it’s not difficult, it will stretch their imaginations and gives them a chance to be creative.
5. Engineer a wheel to travel at least 3.14 meters.
For this activity, you’ll need wooden skewers, marshmallows, toothpicks, and playdough. Start by marking off a start and a stopping point (the distance should be 3.14m). Then, have students create a wheel.
While this may seem easy, it’s actually pretty difficult because the marshmallows and playdough are the only things holding the wheel together. So, the more you test it, the more worn out the wheel becomes.
Learn more about Pi Day STEM by clicking HERE!
6. Explore color mixing with this hands-on science lab.
Before you know it, you’ll blink and St. Patrick’s Day will be here. This science lab is an exciting way to get students exploring color mixing. To start this activity, you’ll only need water, cups, and food color.
Start by having students place red, blue, and yellow in separate cups. Then, have students mix red and blue to determine the new color. Repeat this with blue and yellow and then yellow and red. Once you’ve mixed the primary colors, mix the secondary colors with the primary colors to create tertiary colors.
7. Create shamrock artwork using primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.
We all know the leprechaun loves shamrocks and rainbows, so why not create some shamrock artwork to lure that stinker into your classroom?
I do this activity after completing the color mixing lab. We start by coloring the color wheel, then I teach my students how to blend the primary and secondary colors with tertiary colors. Look how beautiful this came out!
8. Construct a house for the leprechaun.
Sure you can build a leprechaun trap, but why not create a house to help the guy! I love this activity because it integrates social-emotional health, math, and engineering.
You can begin this project with, Jamie O’Rourke or another leprechaun story. Then, let students explore their imaginations to design a house for the leprechaun. It must include a bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, and a living room.
9. Create a model of an insect.
Thankfully as we come to an end, winter is out like a lion and spring is in like a lamb. That means you can celebrate spring fever with your students!
I begin this lesson by talking about pollinators. We use cinnamon and sugar to explore how insects pollinate. Then, we study the body parts of an insect and determine the function. Once students have a basic understanding of the anatomy of an insect, they must create a model of an insect… and it MUST pollinate!
10. Pollinator math game activity!
This is one of my all-time favorite STEM activities. At first, I teach my students about addition with regrouping. I also make sure they know how to build a catapult. Once they have knowledge of these two ideas, then we play this exciting math game!
I start by placing flowers down on the floor. Then, I have my students launch insects using their catapult at the start line. They record the number on the flower. Then, they launch the insect again. Once they have two numbers, they add them up to find the sum of the pollen the insect picked up.
I included single-digit, two-digit, and three-digit numbers with and without regrouping for students. This game is so much fun!
In short, there is an endless amount of March STEM activities you can try! If you’re not sure how to incorporate these activities into your schedule, then click HERE to check out this post where I show you how to incorporate weekly STEM.
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