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Summer STEAM Activites For Kids

Summer is my favorite season for STEAM kid’s activities (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) because it’s easier to clean up! Yes, I know. That’s maybe not the best reasoning. But it’s a very valid reason. STEAM activities can get messy, but taking them outside helps the cleanup process become faster and easier. Here are some of our favorite STEAM activities, along with a few cleaning up tips! 

Sunscreen Painting: I found this gem activity on Pinterest, but we’ve been doing it on repeat at our house! Take a dark sheet of construction paper (black, blue, deep reds, etc) and paint with sunscreen! Leave it out in the sun for a few hours to dry, then come back and see the work you’ve created. It was such a great conversation about sunscreen and how it can help our skin while we’re out playing in the sunshine. 

Oobleck: Such a classic, messy sensory activity. The non-newtonian substance is addicting for kids and adults to play with! I love playing with this in a plastic bin or bowl outside because cleanup is just a simple hose down of everything. Because it’s made of cornstarch and water, it’s safe to hose down into the grass or down the gutter. Please use your best judgment with this and verify if it’s safe for you to do so in your own area or not. 

Diet Coke + Mentos: We all know this activity is also for adult enjoyment, as well as kid entertainment and education. The science behind Diet Coke and Mentos is really fascinating. And if you’re still scratching your head about why it’s a physical reaction instead of a chemical reaction, we’ve got you covered! Check out our article on Chemical vs. Physical Changes.  

Egg Drop: A perfect excuse to use up all of that recycling that’s taking up a corner of your garage (I’m not the only one, right?) Find different ways to protect your egg at different heights of dropping them. The garden hose is also the MVP when it comes to clean up.  

S’mores with Tin Foil: Setting up a little stove with tin foil to make a s’more is not only a great STEM activity, but also a great snack!  

Ice Painting: Have you ever tried painting on ice? The effect is incredible! There are a few ways you can do this. Freeze your own ice cubes or pull cubes out of your ice maker and dump them into a plastic bin or bowl to paint. Freeze a block of water in a big container and paint on the ice chunk. Or buy a bag of ice from a gas station and dump it into a bowl or bin for painting.  

Sink or Float: It may feel boring and overused to you, but I’m willing to bet your child hasn’t done the experiment dozens of times as you have. Find random toys and items, place them in a bucket of water, and see what sinks and what floats.  

Make Your Own Bubble Solution and Wands: We typically make bubble wands out of pipe cleaners, but there are so many materials you can use to create bubble wands. Leaving out different materials and letting the kids come up with their own creations is exactly what STEAM is all about! There are dozens of bubble recipes online, but this one is our favorite: 

½ C. Dish Soap
1 ½ C. Water
2 tsp Sugar

Bubble Foam: Have you tried this yet? It’s a fun outdoor STEAM activity for your kids. I use Busy Toddler’s recipe and instructions. 

Stack Pool Noodles with Shaving Cream: Slice up a pool noodle into smaller discs and build towers by using shaving cream as the “glue.” This is one that is an “outside only” activity for me. Messy play is important, but I have limits too! 

What STEAM activities are you trying out this summer? What cleaning up tips do you have for messy outside play? 

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Alternatives to Book Reports

Book reports! Do you hear that word and just cringe? Because I can almost guarantee your students do! I am a very avid reader and always have been. I was the kid in school that was excited about the assigned reading. But you say book report? And suddenly you’ve lost me. 

There are better ways to analyze and talk about books than book reports, and so many teachers are using these ideas in their own classrooms already! Let’s compile a list so that next time you need to grade your students on reading and analyzing a book, you can do it in style! 

Partner interview: The assignment is simple- The students are paired up and told that their job is to check if their partner has actually read the assigned reading or not. Have them come up with hard questions for each other and let them naturally discuss the book together by testing one another. Let them report back to you whether or not their partner has read the book! 

Book talk: Pull the students aside to have a book talk. Even if you haven’t read the book they chose to read, there are still plenty of questions you can ask to know if they really read it or not. 

Create social media profiles for the book characters: Let them choose the character’s handle, bio, what they would put for their link in their bio, and the first 6-8 pictures on their feed, captions included. 

Rewrite the ending: Instead of writing a book report, let them rewrite the ending of their book in a way they would want to see it end. 

Role-play the book: This is best done in groups, but let them role-play a quick version of the book, give them specific points to include (intro, rising action, climax, resolution, etc), and let their creative juices do the talking. 

Let them extend the story: Want them writing, but also want to avoid a book report? Ask them to continue the story from where it left off. Where would the characters go next? What would the next problem be that they have to solve? How would they solve it? 

What other ways do you avoid book reports in your classroom? Do you find traditional book reports to be effective, or do you prefer alternative options? 

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And The 2023 Winners Are…..

I know I say this every year, but this year’s winners were especially hard to choose because the quantity and quality of submissions we received were incredible. Our team spent two full weeks discussing each and every application, calling references, hearing these kids’ stories from the teacher’s perspectives, and verifying information. It was hard to make the final decision on our top five winners, but alas, we were all able to agree on who should receive the $10,000 college tuition money.

So without further ado, meet our 2023 scholarship winners!

Jalen Coleman: Jalen is our top winner and will receive $5,000 in grant money to further his project. He worked with his city and sponsors to refurbish basketball courts and host tournaments for kids to play in at no cost to the player. He writes,

“The game of basketball belongs to everyone. If you have a ball and a hoop, you have a game. Unfortunately, the sport of basketball for kids has been privatized and commercialized into pay for play model, where travel, cost, and fees are required before kids ever get to see the ball go through the basket. This has created a demand for gym space, coaches, players, playing time, and winning which has caused the stakes to raise, and the culture of sports to become hyper-competitive. I seek to return the game to its roots. We invite all skill levels, youth ages, and genders to play at newly refurbished courts for FREE. Outside J allows all who want to hoop, the ability to hoop without the hyper-competitive, money-driven baggage that comes with sports.”

Austin Picinich: He was set out to help the salmon spawning in Juanita Creek by designing and carrying out the painting of multiple murals around Washington. He writes,

“My goal was to not just create a mural that’s nice to look at – but a mural that teaches my community to protect salmon, and engages my community in creating it. I truly wanted to involve the entire community. I developed a unique “Community Paint Day” format that was interactive and educational. I first designed, outlined, and color-coded my salmon-themed design onto the blank wall in advance. Then, in April 2022, I hosted a Community Paint Day leading 170+ volunteers, ages 4 to 74, to “paint-by-number” my design – transforming the 112-foot wall into a vibrant mural.

Gitanjali Rao: She is a innovator that not only works on research projects, but also adopted an educational outreach program. She writes,

“My work broadly involves 2 main areas, research/innovation, & educational outreach. They are symbiotic and complement each other to achieve the end goal of developing my solution. Within my research initiative, I have developed few products such as a patented lead detection in water, early diagnosis of prescription opioid addiction and launched an anti-cyberbullying technology service in partnership with UNICEF. While working on these, I developed a process to take a solution from an idea to reality, that is proven and repeatable. In the spirit of developing a community of innovators, I started sharing this with my community peers and received excellent feedback. A peer student-led session proved to be effective in environments across the globe. The workshop supplemented any efforts to introduce innovation and social empathy earlier in a student’s education. I started with 10-12 students and slowly expanded it to 300 students per session. Today I conduct about 3-5 sessions a week with about 200 students weekly. I take feedback on them and have been continuously improving the interactive nature of the sessions so that at the end of it, the students have an idea, solution and a process with them to refine on their own.”

Victor Caceres: He was inspired to remodel his town’s food pantry. He writes,

“My project is to renovate and refurbish Martha’s Pantry at my local perish of St. Bridget of Sweden Catholic Church. Saint Bridgets has been my local parish and I know the community very well. Along with that, St. Bridgets is also where my troop meets. I believe my project will help the community by providing an adequate space to distribute perishable and non-perishable food and goods for free to many of the less fortunate in the area. I believe my project will not only benefit the church community at St. Bridgets, but many of the people who live in the Van Nuys area, especially the elderly who frequent Martha’s Pantry throughout the year for their food and goods.”

Fiona Lu and Esther Lau: These two girls have set their eyes on politics to change laws to better their low-income community (among other bills they have been working hard to pass!) and they are working to promote low-income youth to get involved with legislate processes as well. They write,

“Basic Needs Now bridges the gap between the large number of low-income and impoverished youth and their low level of engagement in advocacy. We do this in two ways: policy advocacy and grassroots advocacy. Through policy advocacy, we hope to provide opportunities for low-income youth to participate in bills that support access to basic needs, whether that’s through proposing policies, pushing them through the legislature, or other forms of involvement. At the same time, we’ll hone in on on-the-ground work by creating a chapter infrastructure that mobilizes youth nationwide to form strong connections with their local communities in need. We’re changing the advocacy landscape by giving a platform to low-income youth to fight for issues that affect themselves, while existing organizations often fail to represent our particular community. Moreover, our simultaneous emphasis on both top-down and bottom-up approaches to engage and prioritize impacted communities sets us apart. By working with and building upon the strong network of legislative trailblazers and pioneering advocates we’ve created in the past year through SB 260, California’s Menstrual Equity Act of 2023, we’re excited to uplift the voices of our own community, empowering youth like ourselves to join the movement for economic justice.”

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Free Summer Reading Bingo Printable for Kids

My daughter and I made this summer reading bingo printable for us to try out this summer, so I figured, why not share it with everyone? It’s nothing crazy special, we just used Google Docs and not some great graphic design program. But it did the job and looks decent!

I aimed to keep it formatted to reach all ages of kids. Our local librarian printed it out for anyone to grab that wanted one, and so far it’s been confirmed that preschool-aged students up to young adults have loved it.

One thing that I am making sure to do this summer with our bingo chart is to make it nothing but FUN. Reading shouldn’t be pressured or forced into charts. It’s fun to switch up your reading locations and types of books, but keep it just that… fun!

So try it out and let us know how it works for your students!

Summer-Reading-Bingo-1-1Download
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Five Picture Books for Juneteenth

Juneteenth is coming up, and what better day to celebrate and learn about a holiday than with picture books? Here are 5 books that we’ve read in the past years that we’ve loved and have learned so much from that we want to share with you.

A Flag For Juneteenth by Kim Taylor

Opal Lee And What It Means to Be Free by Alice Faye Duncan

Almost to Freedom by Baunda Micheaux Nelson

The Juneteenth Story by Alliah L. Agostini

All Different Now by Angela Johnson

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Saying Goodbye to our Students

The school year is coming to a close, which is always so exciting (and needed). But it seems like after all of the hectic end-of-the-year parties and celebrations are over and we’re sitting alone in our empty classrooms, that’s when the reality sets in. 

They’re gone. They’re really gone. 

Your students aren’t coming back to your classrooms again, they’re moving up and moving on. 

For so many months, the routine was the same. Your students walked in, took their seats, and your school day started. 

Together, you learned new concepts and reviewed the old. As a team, you worked to problem-solve within your classroom to create the best learning environment possible. 

There were so many hours spent in the classroom that you all became a family, functioning together as a family does. 

And yes, times were hard, deep breaths were taken (by everyone), and problems were dealt with.

But at the end of the day, your classroom dynamic was still a family dynamic, and there you all were, sticking up for each other, advocating for each other, and learning together. 

So as you sit in your empty classroom in the silence to follow the crazy end of the year… take it all in. Remember all of the good times and bad times you had. Appreciate those students for everything they were and weren’t. And feel good knowing that they walked out of your classroom a better person than they were when they entered. 

It’s okay to feel sad and to feel happy at the same time, there’s space for both. 

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Confessions of a Scholarship Chairperson

substitute teacher quandry

When I attended college, I had a friend tell me about a scholarship for sophomore students that I qualified for. She was part of the scholarship committee and gave me some insight into what exactly they were looking for in a scholarship applicant, so I had a really good chance at winning. 

I put in the work and applied, but ultimately, was denied. 

I was devastated. Why wouldn’t they choose me? If only a few people had applied and there were multiple winners, why wasn’t my application chosen? It was a really good scholarship application! I felt like they hadn’t even read what I had submitted or cared about the work I put into it. 

Fast forward several years later and I become the scholarship chairperson for Honors Graduation. It was exciting that I could be behind the scenes of a scholarship and have the opportunity to choose the winners! Little did I know what emotions were in store for me. 

Each year I read through so many scholarship applications and in the end I can only choose five. Five winners out of all of the applications we receive. 

What I didn’t realize when I applied for a scholarship of my own several years ago was how emotionally intensive it would be to read through so many hardworking, deserving students’ work and have to deny the majority of them. I’m sure when I applied for my scholarship years ago, I wasn’t actually “just another applicant” that they disregarded. Instead, I think my application was one that they poured over, read and re-read, discussed, and came to the conclusion that the scholarship wasn’t for me. 

Because I’ve been in those shoes now, doing the exact same thing with our scholarship applicants. 

Over the next two weeks, my time will be filled with reading and re-reading applications over and over and over until I nearly have them memorized. It’ll be time spent calling the applicant’s references to verify projects and hear what stellar and incredible students they are. My time will be spent building a bond with each of these students and their projects, just to have to make the hard decision at the end on which applicants are the top five and deserve the scholarship money. 

So when that hard rejection email hits your inbox, just know that it’s hard on our end to choose the winners, too. I’ve been on that end of rejection, and it hurts. But maybe it feels a little better to know that your application wasn’t thrown in the reject pile, but read over and over and appreciated, even if you didn’t win.