Take the Jingle Bell STEM challenge with the whole family this holiday! We are continuing our 25 Days of Christmas STEM Countdown with a fun Christmas theme STEM challenge. Can you muffle the sound of a jingle bell using a variety of Christmas-themed items? Look for the free printable project pack below to help you get started.
Jingle Bell STEM Challenge
The Christmas season is a fantastic time to try our easy STEM activities with a festive theme. You can easily recreate classic STEM challenges with a holiday theme, such as our paper chain challenge!
💡Check out 25 days of Christmas STEM activities here and find similar challenges below.
The Challenge: Quiet a jingle bell.
Supplies:
- Reusable/Fillable Plastic Christmas Ornament {small plastic container will work too}
- Jingle Bells
- Tissue Paper
- Pom Poms
- Tinsel
- Bows
- Anything Festive!
TIP: Use the free printable packet below to scale this activity for elementary and middle school-age kids. For your younger STEM-ists, keep it playful!
Let’s get the Jingle Bell STEM Challenge underway!
Explore the materials and plan your Jingle Bell STEM challenge. We started by placing a single jingle bell inside the ornament without any materials to check out the sound.
Experiment with Different Jingle Bells!
We used just one jingle bell for this Jingle Bell STEM Challenge, but you can experiment with different amounts or sizes!
Here’s how to start: pack your ornament with pom poms, close it up, and give it a shake! Can you hear the jingle bell? If you still listen to it, add more pom poms and shake again. Why do you think you can still hear the bell? What could you change to make it quieter?
Try this experiment with different materials. Which one works best to muffle the jingle bell? My son loved the excitement of shaking the ornament. Will it work this time? Can he hear it? What will happen next? It’s a fun way to make predictions and test ideas!
Take it a step further by trying different combinations of materials. Why do some combinations work better than others? For older kids, have them take notes on the combinations and results!
What other materials can you find around the house or classroom for this challenge? With this simple and fun STEM activity, the possibilities are endless!
Use The Engineering Design Process For Christmas STEM
This season, why not pair the engineering design process with fun holiday themes, including candy canes, gumdrops, Christmas trees… you get the picture!
Engineers often follow a design process. Although all engineers use different design processes, each one includes the same basic steps to identify and solve problems.
An example of the process is “ask, imagine, plan, create, and improve”. This process is flexible and may be completed in any order. Read More Here.
Want to continue the Christmas projects all month long? Use this fantastic STEM guide to complete the 25 days of Christmas STEM Challenges.
More Fun Christmas STEM Challenges
Check out more Christmas STEM projects here.
Santa’s Chimney Challenge: Soft candy and toothpicks are a winning combination for building structures for STEM. Build a chimney for Santa. How high can you make it?
Santa’s Sleigh Challenge: Santa needs a sleigh to make his rounds. But what happens if Santa’s sleigh is down for repairs with no time to spare? It’s up to you to design and build Santa a new sleigh with this Christmas STEM challenge, complete with free printable worksheets.
Christmas Paper Chain Challenge: Turn decorating the Christmas tree into a STEM challenge! Make the most festive and longest paper chain you can from one piece of paper.
Christmas Card STEM Challenge: The best way to recycle all those Christmas cards! What kind of structures can you build with a heap of Christmas cards?
Christmas Tree STEM Challenge: Get your kids off the screens and into Christmas-building games with this Christmas tree cup game. The challenge is to build a Christmas tree with just 100 cups.
Christmas Catapult: Design and build a simple catapult, and test how far you can fling the red and white pom and poms. Almost to the North Pole!
More Christmas Activities For Kids
- Christmas Science Activities
- Christmas Art Activities
- Christmas Jokes for Kids
- Christmas Games for Kids
Printable Christmas STEM Project Pack
200+ PAGES OF HOLIDAY THEME STEAM, STEM, Science, and Art!
- 25+ Christmas theme science and STEM activities with printable sheets, instructions, and useful information all using easy-to-source materials perfect for limited-time needs. Includes a holiday theme engineering pack with fun, problem-based challenges for kids to solve! NEW observation sheets included.
- Try a Santa’s Letter airplane challenge or take the gingerbread house-building challenge!
- Explore the five senses with a specially designed Santa’s Lab pack.
- Try a mini nature study with your favorite type of Christmas tree.
- Try your hand at building shapes with gumdrop structure challenge cards or build shapes with jingle bells. Or try the Christmas-themed paper chain challenge!
- Christmas Screen-free Coding activities include algorithm games, binary code ornaments, and more!
- Explore 6+ Christmas Art Projects with famous artist-inspired activities that combine art history, process art techniques, and more with simple to-do ideas.
Can’t wait to give this a try!
Awesome! Have fun!