Don’t you just love Halloween! We do! There are many cool ways to explore STEM during the holidays that make it so much fun. We created ghostly styrofoam ball structures using just 2 supplies. Excellent learning activity that is also a neat play idea. Build ghostly structures for a little spooky Halloween science and STEM this fall.
COOL BUILDING ACTIVITY FOR KID’S STEM
It doesn’t get much easier than this cool Halloween STEM activity. These styrofoam ball structures are a perfect play and learn activity for engineering, math, and science! Not to mention, there is tons of fine motor skills and problem-solving opportunities happening while building styrofoam structures! Plus it’s fun!
Introducing STEM to young children can be simple and enjoyable. Create a love for all things STEM early on, and kids will be set for the future.
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT WHEN BUILDING YOUR STRUCTURE…
- How do you keep the tower from tipping?
- How many balls do you need to make a stable base?
- What shape can you build to start the tower?
- How high can you make it?
- What shape makes a good roof? How many balls did you use?
Make sure to check out the cool addition at the end.
Looking for easy to print activities, and inexpensive problem-based challenges?
We have you covered…
—>>> FREE STEM Activities For Halloween
GHOSTLY STYROFOAM STRUCTURES
YOU WILL NEED:
- Styrofoam Balls {purchased several multi-size packs at dollar store}
- Toothpicks
- Black Sharpie
INSTRUCTIONS:
Since our styrofoam ball structures are supposed to be ghostly for our Halloween STEM project, I drew black eyes on the foam balls. It works well enough and you could probably cut out black paper eyes and glue them {google eyes?}.
ALSO CHECK OUT: Ghostly Bubble Science Towers
Starting building by joining the stryofoam balls together with the toothpicks. What shape will you make?
He learned that he could build a square and turn it into a cube to start his styrofoam ball structures!
Patience, fine motor skills, and problem-solving are all a part of building a tower. Styrofoam balls and toothpicks are the perfect building materials for structures.
You can also test out: toothpicks and gumdrops and toothpicks and pool noodle pieces!
How tall can you build your tower? Our ghostly tower is pretty tall and stable. My son is proud of his engineering efforts and thinks building styrofoam ball structures is really cool. I do too!
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Building Structures With Kids
Want to make your styrofoam ball structures a bit more ghostly? Add white streamers to the project and add a bit of art to your engineering activity. Make it STEAM = STEM + Art!
MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT: 31 Days of Halloween Countdown
CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR PRINTABLE HALLOWEEN STEM CARDS
Printable Halloween STEM Activities Pack
150+ Pages of Halloween-Themed Materials! This Halloween project pack is suitable for home, school, and group use for kids in grades Kindergarten through elementary but is scaleable for many ages and abilities.
What’s Included:
- 25+ Halloween 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 Halloween engineering pack with fun, problem-based challenges for kids to solve!
- The skeleton activity pack includes building a skeleton challenge and a coding challenge! Try a skeleton bones bridge-building STEM challenge!
- Halloween theme brick printable activities for hands-on learning with math that is perfect for early finishers or home fun and reinforces basic math concepts.
- Bonus fun pack includes games and activities to round out your Halloween theme activities such as I Spy, bingo, matching, Would You Rather cards, scavenger hunt, word search, A-Z Halloween hunt, and a coloring page.
- Halloween STEAM Pack includes artist-inspired projects by Warhol, Lichtenstein, and more!
Awesome building/engineering activity! And the streamers make it so artistic!!