Flying cupids, launching hearts, and so much more! Let’s kick off the season with 14 days of STEM Valentine challenges. Valentine STEM activities are simple twists on your favorite, everyday STEM projects. Adding hearts, traditional holiday colors, or themed candies/supplies makes for fun Valentine’s Day activities for kids. Encourage a love of learning with simple STEM activities!
Engineering Valentine’s Day Activities
Bring STEM fun to your Valentine’s Day this year! It’s super easy to give our STEM challenges a Valentine theme makeover with simple materials and everyday supplies. Set up fun and easy to do Valentine’s projects to get your kids thinking!
These hands-on Valentine’s Day STEM activities invite kids to explore, test, think, observe, and discover! Experimenting leads to discoveries, and discoveries spark curiosity!
Kids constantly learn about the world’s workings, and fun theme STEM projects are an easy choice. These Valentine’s Day activities for preschool to elementary grades are simple to set up and use only a few materials.
Encourage your kids to make predictions, discuss observations, and re-test their ideas if they don’t get the desired results the first time. Science always includes an element of mystery that kids naturally love to figure out!
Use The Engineering Design Process
This Valentine’s Day, why not pair the engineering design process with fun holiday themes including candy hearts, cupid balloons, red and pink glitter… you get the picture!
Engineers often follow a design process. There are many different design processes that all engineers use, but 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.
Remember, it’s ok not to get it right the first time. Good ideas take tweaking, designing and re-designing, testing and re-testing to get it right. Often, it’s from our failures that we find success. STEM provides life lessons for kids!
Read more about the Engineering Design Process and grab the free information guide.
Helpful STEM Resources To Add
Here are a few resources that will help you introduce STEM activities and challenges more effectively to your kiddos or students and feel confident yourself when presenting materials.
You’ll find tons of free printables, templates, and journal sheets throughout all of our activities or join us in the Library Club for instant access all year long!
- Engineering Design Process Explained
- What Is An Engineer?
- Engineering Words
- Real World STEM
- Questions for Reflection (get them talking about it!)
- Jr. Engineer Challenge Calendar (Free)
- Must Have STEM Supplies List
Tip: Set Up A Tinker Tray
Start each holiday or season with a theme tinker tray. Go to your local dollar store or seasonal aisle of any big box store for inexpensive finds to add to your tinker kit.
The materials are inexpensive overall. You may already have many simple supplies in your cupboards and drawers. The craft, dollar, and grocery stores have everything you need.
Some purchased materials can be saved and reused for different activities. I like to store materials in a large plastic tote and separate holidays and seasons into zip-top bags to keep it organized.
A tinker tray is just one of our go-to resources for inexpensive STEM supplies. If you want to learn more about how we do STEM on a budget, CLICK HERE.
12 Valentines STEM Activities For Kids
Have fun with these STEM ideas below. Use them to set up your own 14-day countdown calendar or move them around to suit your needs. Pick just a few Valentine’s activities to enjoy or try each one!
Day 1: Flying Cupids Balloon Rocket
A super fun physics activity with a Valentine’s Day theme!
Day 2: Valentine Slime
We have amazing Valentine’s Day slime activities to share with you using some of our favorite and easy to make slime recipes. Fluffy slime, saline slime, floam slime, and more!
Day 3: Cupid’s Magic Milk Experiment
Magic milk is a classic experiment that you can recreate with great themes all year round. It’s also cool chemistry that shows a bit about how the molecules in the milk react to the dish soap to create fireworks. Kids love to do this over and over again!
Day 4: Heart Cup Tower Challenge
Can you build a heart-shaped tower? All you need are these mini red cups and cardboard pieces! Bonus challenge, try a larger version!
Day 5: Sink The Boat
How many candy hearts does it take to sink the boat? Explore buoyancy with an easy to set up STEM activity with two variations for younger, and older kids!
Day 6: Valentine Thaumatrope
So easy! Computer paper, drinking straws, markers, and tape. No mess with this science toy!
Day 7: Dissolving Candy Hearts
Explore solubility with Valentine’s Day candy! Free printable candy heart worksheet included too!
Day 8: Valentine Catapult
Design and build a catapult that will launch hearts for an awesome Valentine STEM activity!
Day 9: Baking Soda Vinegar Balloon Experiment
Have you ever tried the classic baking soda balloon experiment where you use baking soda and vinegar to blow up a balloon instead of your lungs? Here’s a fun Valentine’s Day version of it!
Day 10: Build Candy Structures
Jelly beans, gumdrops, marshmallows, and toothpicks. What can you build? A bridge, a tower, geometric shapes, an abstract sculpture! Look for the free printable shape cards included.
Day 11: Valentine’s Day Coding
We have been playing with the binary alphabet to check out coding without a computer. Grab some pipe cleaners, and beads to make a coding Valentine bracelet. You will also find a link to an algorithm coding game as well!
Day 12: Grow Crystal Hearts
Chemistry and Valentine’s Day go hand in hand with super-saturated solutions that grow these gorgeous crystal hearts! We even did this activity with a second-grade classroom of 20 kids from start to finish!
Day 13: Valentine’s Day Lava Lamp
Explore a fun science activity with a neat result! A DIY lava lamp is an easy-to-set-up science experiment that showcases some simple concepts like liquid density and chemical reactions.
DAY 14: Coffee Filter Flower Bouquet
Instead of buying fresh flowers for a special someone, go ahead and make your own colorful bouquet combining science and art for a fantastic STEAM project all about solubility!
BONUS: Fizzing Hearts for STEAM
Whip up baking soda paint for cool chemistry that combines with art! This fizzing baking soda and vinegar activity is also a unique way to make homemade paint. Perfect for a STEAM project that combines science and art!
Printable Valentine STEM Project Pack
Countdown to Valentine’s Day with science and STEM! Pack includes complete instructions, templates, and images for 20+ activities. Bonus: printable science Valentine’s Day cards!
What size do you cut the cardboard for the stacking red solo cups into the heart?
The width of the mouth of the cup or so is fine. There is no specific measurement or you can use index cards.