Who says you can’t mix Christmas fun with hands-on learning? These easy Christmas STEM activities for kids explore science, technology, engineering, and math with a festive twist. Use simple materials, quick setups, and plenty of free printables to keep kids learning and playing all December long.
Free Instant Printable Christmas STEM Activities
Now through the 25th, download the Christmas STEM activities instantly!
💡This season, try pairing the engineering design process with Christmas STEM challenges using candy canes, gumdrops, Christmas trees, jingle bells, and more.
—> START HERE: Grab the FREE STEM Christmas Countdown Challenges and Project List!
How to Use These Christmas STEM Activities
These Christmas STEM ideas work well at home, in the classroom, or with small groups.
- Age Range: Most activities are perfect for preschool, kindergarten, and elementary ages. Many challenges can be extended for older kids with extra constraints or data collection.
- Simple Supplies: Use easy-to-find items like cups, paper, tape, balloons, candy canes, gumdrops, and basic craft supplies.
- Quick Setups: Many of these Christmas science experiments and STEM challenges take just a few minutes to set up but offer plenty of time for testing and revising.
- Printables Included: Look for free printable Christmas STEM activity pages, challenge cards, and templates to save time and add more structure.
Choose one activity a day to create a simple Christmas STEM countdown, or pick a few favorites for a holiday STEM day.
Fun Christmas STEM Activities for Kids
Our easy Christmas STEM activities are hands-on, playful, and can be scaled for a variety of ages with more or less adult assistance, and the use of our printable materials. Look for free printable templates throughout the activities.
💡 Check out our list of Christmas Science Experiments
New! Gingerbread Man Trap STEM Challenge
Run, run as fast as you can to design and make a Gingerbread Man Trap to go along with the classic tale.
New! Reindeer Rocket
Explore energy and motion with a seasonal paper-straw reindeer rocket and a free template.
Christmas Paper Chain Challenge
Here’s a great place to start for a festive and simple STEM challenge that doubles as room decor! Add the Christmas paper chain challenge to your to-do list.
Reindeer Toothpaste
Reindeer toothpaste is a fun and festive chemical reaction experiment demonstrating hydrogen peroxide’s rapid decomposition, creating a foamy eruption perfect for holiday-themed science!
Light Up Circuit Ornament
Create a festive light-up circuit ornament while exploring basic electronics and STEM concepts!
Using the Engineering Design Process with Christmas STEM Activities
Engineers often follow a design process to solve problems. A kid-friendly version is:
- Ask – What is the problem? What are the rules or goals?
- Imagine – Brainstorm ideas. What could work?
- Plan – Choose a design and gather materials.
- Create – Build and test your design.
- Improve – What worked? What didn’t? How can you make it better?
You can use this process with any of the Christmas STEM activities on this page—design a quieter jingle bell, a stronger gumdrop bridge, or a taller Christmas tree cup tower.
Santa STEM Activities and Experiments for Kids
What does Santa get up to at Christmas? Engineer and experiment with these Santa theme STEM activities.
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.
Santa’s Balloon Rocket ⭐️: A fun Christmas version of the classic balloon rocket. Explore forces as you send Santa flying across the room.
Santa’s 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!
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 Magic Milk: We all know Santa loves his milk and cookies and of course, he would have to have magic milk for Christmas! Explore the magic of Christmas with a magical science experiment.
Santa’s Frozen Hands: Explore how water changes from a solid to a liquid with this simple ice melt activity perfect for preschoolers.
Candy Cane Science and STEM Activities
A staple in our house… candy canes, whether actual or symbolic, are a must for quick Christmas STEM activities.
Bending Candy Canes: Is it magic or science? Bend a candy cane into a circle.
Dissolving Candy Canes: Set up this easy Christmas experiment with candy canes. Investigate what happens when you add candy canes to water.
Coding Candy Cane Ornaments: Code without a computer, learn about the binary alphabet, and craft a simple ornament all in one great Christmas STEM project.
Crystal Candy Cane Ornaments: Why not grow candy canes you can hang up as Christmas tree ornaments! This fun Christmas experiment explores how crystals grow and teaches a little bit about suspension science {chemistry}.
Candy Cane Fluffy Slime: The stretchiest, the coolest, the most unique-est slime that you will love to make!
Candy Cane Oobleck: Add peppermints to the classic 2 ingredient oobleck for a very Christmasy non-Newtonian fluid!
Christmas Tree STEM Activities and Projects
How many ways can you enjoy a Christmas Tree activity this season… over here we have a ton. You’ll find even more ideas for Christmas tree crafts, and more here.
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.
Cardboard Christmas Tree Engineering ⭐️: Use this free Christmas tree template to engineer cardboard Christmas trees to decorate!
Fizzy Christmas Trees: Make a moldable baking soda mixture in the shape of Christmas trees. What happens when you add vinegar? A fizzing chemical reaction!!
Christmas Card Challenge: The best way to recycle all those Christmas cards! Build a Christmas tree structure from Christmas cards.
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.
Fizzy Christmas Tree Ornaments: Here’s another fun way to use baking soda and vinegar. Grab some plastic ornaments and make an erupting decoration.
Coffee Filter Christmas Tree STEAM Project: Coffee filters are a MUST have addition to any science or craft kit! Soluble science is combined with unique process art to make these colorful Christmas trees.
3D Christmas Tree: Put together this simple Christmas paper craft that doubles as a fun 3D Christmas tree too!
Christmas Tree Tessellations: Color the pattern and then work out how to tessellate the Christmas tree for a fun and easy Christmas Math activity.
Pop Up Christmas Tree Card: Another easy way to explore 3 dimensions. Make a fun pop up card that you can gift to a loved one as well!
Bioplastic Christmas Ornaments: Create these colorful ornaments with your own homemade biodegradable plant based plastic.
Sharpie and Alcohol Christmas Ornaments: Make these fun science ornaments for the tree with Sharpie Ink and rubbing alcohol.
Jingle Bell STEM Activities
A fun Christmas craft item also makes a good manipulative to use for math, science, and of course a fun STEM challenge.
Jingle Bell STEM Challenge ⭐️ : This is our version of the classic egg drop challenge with a more Christmasy theme. Can you quiet a jingle bell so it doesn’t make any noise?
Christmas Magnetic Ornaments: Make simple ornaments to hang on the tree from a number of magnetic items, including jingle bells.
Jingle Bell Math: Use jingle bells and pipe cleaners to engineer simple shapes. Free printable shape cards available as a prompt for kids.
Gingerbread STEM Activities and Experiments
Whether you like to eat them or decorate them, gingerbread is a must-have at Christmas time!
Scented Gingerbread Slime: Are you baking cookies or making slime? Enjoy the scented science and sensory play that is so easy to make.
3D Paper Gingerbread House: Make a gingerbread house out of paper and explore 3D shapes for an easy STEAM activity. Free printable gingerbread house template included.
Crystal Gingerbread Ornaments: Grow borax crystals on gingerbread men shaped pipe cleaners to make ornaments you can hang on the tree. Here’s another version with salt crystals.
Gingerbread House Tessellations: Grab the printable Christmas tessellations for a hands-on Christmas math activity.
Dissolving Gingerbread Cookies: Here is an easy Christmas STEM activity you can do with younger kiddos! Investigate what happens to cookies when you add them to water.
Fizzing Gingerbread Men: No baking here, but you get to observe and play with a fun baking soda and vinegar chemical reaction and gingerbread cookie cutters.
LEGO Gingerbread House: Design and build a gingerbread house from LEGO bricks for a fun Christmas STEM project.
Gumdrop STEM Challenges and Experiments
Make sure to grab these free gumdrop and toothpick building cards! Take a classic bag of way too-sweet candy and put it to good use… for STEM activities!
Physical Change with Gumdrops: Investigate what happens to gumdrops when you heat them in the oven. Is it a physical change or a chemical change?
Gumdrop Bridge Building Challenge: An easy Christmas STEM challenge. Build a bridge from gumdrops and test how much weight it can hold.
Printable Christmas STEM Ideas and Activities
From snowmen to DIY Christmas ornaments to screen-free coding and even STEM activities for the Grinch… This list will continue to grow (just like the Grinch’s heart)!
- Christmas LEGO Challenge Cards
- Christmas STEM Challenge Cards
- 3D Snowman Template
- Christmas Coding Pictures
- Christmas Algorithm Game
- Christmas Math Worksheets
- Grinch STEM Challenge Cards
- 3D Shape Ornaments
- Christmas I Spy
- Christmas Paper Chain STEM Challenge
Printable Christmas Project Packs
Visit our SHOP for easy-to-print art, holiday, STEM, and science lesson plans for the whole year. Or join us in the Little Bins Club.
I’ve filled out the form twice to get the gumdrop cards sent to me but never received anything.
Please email me sarah@littlebinsforlittlehands.com and I can check it out!