Santa's Chimney STEM Challenge - Little Bins for Little Hands

Candy for Christmas, I bet you have plenty! I love to build with candy and gumdrops are perfect for candy engineering projects like this Santa’s Chimney STEM Challenge. Make sure to check out our 25 Days of Christmas STEM Challenges with free printable!

BUILD A CHIMNEY FOR SANTA THIS CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS CANDY STEM CHALLENGE

Soft candy and toothpicks are a winning combination for building structures for STEM. Depending on the season or the desired outcome, there are so many variations to try. If you don’t want to use candy, consider straws and play dough or even apple chunks! We have really enjoyed using gumdrops in the past.

Check out all our building activities for kids!

I also love to come up with a simple Advent Calendars or Countdown Christmas Calendar each year. We have an awesome 25 Days of Christmas Science Countdown. This Christmas candy STEM challenge to build Santa a chimney is one of them!

Click here to grab your FREE STEM Christmas Activities

SANTA’S CHIMNEY STEM CHALLENGE

SUPPLIES:

Toothpicks
Gumdrops
Small House {we used a dollar store gingerbread house themed box but you could also make your own with a milk carton!}

Or you can try these free Christmas papercraft activities first! Use the candy and toothpicks to build similar models.

THE CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE:

Although this Candy STEM challenge has a specific task, it is still very much open to interpretation. Your kids can design Santa whatever chimney they like! Any size, shape, color, design, you name it. In fact, they can even build the house out of gumdrops too.

gumdrop-stem-challenge-structure-building-activity

He also chose to build trees around the house which is another excellent way to work on three-dimensional design and shapes. White gumdrops are perfect for building enormous snowflakes too. Candy is great for science experiments too!

He also wanted to see if he could build a gumdrop tree taller than the house, so he set his own challenge! I love that he can challenge himself with his own ideas. It was definitely a great challenge for figuring out how to make a very tall but stable tree with the supplies we had.

Building structures is an amazingly quick and simple to set up STEM activity for kids to enjoy anytime. A great boredom buster, screen-free idea, or a stuck inside project that can really make an afternoon fly by any time of the year.