STEM Seasonal Challenges for grades 2-5 provides a fun way to enhance STEM learning in the classroom. This boxed set includes 30 challenge cards—each card is seasonally- or holiday-themed. Designed to capture a student's attention, challenges are diverse, simple, and easy to complete and include these fun activities: creating pumpkin catapults, making elf zip lines, designing pool floatation devices, and more!

Help students go full STEAM ahead with festive grab-and-go activities! Seasonal STEM Challenges offers an engaging way to get students interested in science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Each challenge card features two sides—the front side includes the challenge and a visual list of materials needed to complete the challenge. The back of the card is ideal for extended learning and includes hints, questions, and explanations of the science behind the challenge. Each activity uses common materials and can be completed individually or during whole-class instruction.

STEM Challenges helps teachers integrate STEM into the classroom by providing hands-on activities that appeal to students. Because of the child-friendly text and the visual materials lists, these easy, but fun, activities can be completed independently, in small groups, or as a whole-class activity. The activities require common materials so students or teachers can "grab and go!” Don't forget to check out the STEM Challenges set for more fun ways to learn STEM.

Science, technology, engineering, art, and math work together to make learning fun in these STEAM lessons!

Perfect for Makerspace!

This second grade teacher resource book includes:

• A year's worth of teacher lesson plans
• STEAM design challenges that turn elementary students into inventors
• Easy-to-follow lesson format (with standards identified for each lesson)
• Classroom-tested lessons

The STEAM Design Challenges in this book follow engineering practices to teach students in Grade 2 to solve a problem by designing, creating, and justifying their designs. They also allow art to support and enhance the learning of science and math while the engineering process is followed.

These engaging STEAM lessons:

• Integrate the Next Generation Science Standards and national standards from other disciplines
• Enhance learning across various disciplines
• Facilitate students in collaborating to solve real-world scenarios
• Promote critical thinking, analytical thinking, and reflective thinking
• Incorporate the Five Es Instructional Model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate)
• Are classroom tested

Engineering Design Process
The lessons in this book are intended to support the engineering design process in which teachers become a facilitator by encouraging and guiding students to work as a team to find a creative solution to a real-world problem without providing step-by-step instructions. Students are inspired to act as scientists and engineers through the use of sketches, diagrams, mathematical relationships, and literacy connections. By creating their very own models and products based on background information from their studies, students are immediately engaged through a meaningful, rewarding lesson.

More about the lessons
Each lesson begins by presenting students with a design challenge scenario in order to immediately excite students with a real-world situation that they are on a mission to solve. Students are then given a dilemma, mission, and blueprint design sheet and are asked to collaborate with team members to create several prototypes. Students present their prototypes to their teacher, construct their design, test their design, engage in a class discussion about their design, and then modify their design. Finally, teams create a justification piece in order to sell their new prototype (ex. persuasive letter, video, advertisement etc.).

About the Authors
The Steam Dreamers, a group of four classroom teachers, desired to create more interactive learning environments and science classrooms through student-centered problem-solving lessons. They created this collection of cross-curricular design challenge lessons to provide teachers and students with real-world scenarios that are driven by core learning standards and enriched through the inclusion of literacy and the arts.

• Board game inspired by Learning Resources' Code & Go Robot Mouse teaches kids coding basics
• Two to four players draw coding cards and “compute” their mice towards cheese wedges scattered across the board
• Players must use critical thinking skills to navigate their mice away from barriers and toward warp tunnels
• Board game teaches coding skills through tactile play without the need for extra screen time or app

• The 15 grade-appropriate STEM challenges target life, Earth, and physical science concepts.
• Every unit is focused on a hands-on challenge in which students apply the STEM process of plan, create, test, and redesign.
• No-prep lessons and easy-to-find materials help you fit STEM learning into the busy school day.

• Teacher overview pages—Tips and directions for preparing students to complete a STEM challenge, as well as a materials list that suggests readily available items to gather.
• Reading selections for background knowledge—Foundational information that is relevant to the challenge that students are completing.
• Visual real-world examples—A visual literacy page with real-world images relevant to the STEM challenge.
• A STEM challenge overview—Introduces the specific task and goal of each STEM challenge and provides space for students to brainstorm.
• Design process worksheets—Activities guide students to plan, create, test, and evaluate their creation.
• A redesign page to evaluate their design—The worksheet guides students through each step of the design process and provides space to document plans, materials, results, evaluations, and revisions.

• Egg-Laying Box (Life Science Concept: Simple Machines (inclined plane)
• Submarine (Earth Science Concept: Buoyancy)
• Projector (Physical Science Concept: Optics)

Children piece together circuit blocks in different combinations to become more familiar with how a circuit works while also developing problem-solving skills. Starter Set contains on switch, battery pack, buzzer, light, 5 direction pieces and a helicopter piece. The Expansion Pack challenges students to make bigger and more complex electronic circuits by adding more electronic blocks, lights and switches. Each set includes activity sheet with circuit ideas. Batteries not included

• Learning Styles: Tactile, Visual
• Skill Development: Problem solving, Following directions, Fine motor skills, Eye-hand coordination, Sequential thought, Critical thinking, Spatial relationships, Creativity, Early engineering

• 52-Piece set activity cards

• A year's worth of teacher lesson plans
• STEAM design challenges that turn middle school students into inventors
• Easy-to-follow lesson format (with standards identified for each lesson)
• Classroom-tested lessons

• Integrate the Next Generation Science Standards and national standards from other disciplines
• Enhance learning across various disciplines
• Facilitate students in collaborating to solve real-world scenarios
• Promote critical thinking, analytical thinking, and reflective thinking
• Incorporate the Five Es Instructional Model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate)
• Are classroom tested