My kids went back to school this week and this mamma is pooped! I think I spent all week just putting the house back together. I am not really complaining, all the disaray, just meant my kids were busy creating things and conquering their summer! But, we still have a few Summer Stem Challenges to cover, and some people out there don't start school until September. While I am slightly jealous of those schedules, I keep reminding myself that our 3 weeks off in December is one of the best things ever!
So, back to STEM. My kids build. A lot. Legos are seriously the most played with toys in our house. Something is always being built and while it's a pain to step on them, I love seeing what my kids come up with when they are building. When I was picking which STEM activities we were going to do this summer, I really wanted to give them a different way to build and use their imaginations/novice engineering skills. So, I gave them a plate of toothpicks and sour-patch watermelons and told them to build. Both had done similar things with marshmallows at school, we just picked our favorite junk food! I gave them no guidelines, except that it needed to be 3 dimensional and stand on it's own. I wanted to to see what they did.
They got so creative and it's fun to watch how their brains work. It's also fun to watch how siblings are similar and different in one little project. They each got to eat 3 watermelon candies after it was over, then the rest went into a zip lock bag to be saved for later (I'm not that crazy!).
This was a super easy and inexpensive project to just give a change of pace at the end of the summer. Something to build (because they love building) and a new way to do it. Plus, candy makes it fun!
I hope you all are having a great first week back or enjoying the rest of your vacation. I am off to have lunch with my husband for the first time since May. I'm so excited!
Enjoy your weekend!
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