Elementary STEM Activities

What does STEM look like for elementary students? Well, it’s simply a lot of exploring, testing, observing, and most importantly… doing! STEM for elementary is about taking simple science experiments and exploring them farther so that kids are drawing their own conclusions. These fun and easy STEM challenges will excite and engage elementary age kids!

STEM design process steps to success info

Making STEM Fun

STEM for elementary is an introduction to the wonderful world around them. Kids of this age are understanding more, reading and writing more, and exploring more about why things do what they do. Often elementary age kids are ready for more!

Kids of this age have questions and are thinking a bit more outside the box. They want to test out their ideas, plan new ideas, and figure out why their ideas worked or didn’t work. That is the process of STEM learning!

What is STEM?

First though what is STEM? STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math. STEM activities involving these fields have a huge impact on kids. Even the simplest STEM activities, like building the catapult I talk about below, provide numerous opportunities for kids to learn and explore STEM.

These STEM building activities might look like your kids are just playing, but they are doing much more. Look closely; you will see the engineering design process in motion. You will see experimenting and critical thinking in action, and you will notice problem-solving at its finest. When kids play, they learn about the world around them!

STEM Teaches Life Skills

These simple STEM activities for elementary work just as well in the classroom as they do for distance learning, homeschool groups, or screen-free time at home. Also perfect for library groups, scouting groups, and vacation camps.

I highly encourage you to get in on the fun if you can but hold back on providing the answers when things don’t go as expected!

Fun STEM Activities for Elementary Kids

Simple science experiments are some of our very first explorations! We have so many favorites to share. You can find even more ideas for elementary science experiments here.

Build An Animal Shelter

Just like us, animals need shelter to protect them from harsh weather and predators. Design, engineer and build a shelter that meets the basic needs of animals!

Build A Catapult

Time to storm the castle with a homemade catapult that explores many parts of STEM and that is entirely playful. Kids will come back to this one over and over again! We have several popular versions of the homemade catapult, the best being made out of craft sticks and rubber bands.

DIY popsicle stick catapult Inexpensive STEM activity

Build A Marble Run

Building a marble run or marble maze is full of design possibilities and encourages those engineering skills. You can build it on the wall with cardboard tubes and tape, LEGO bricks on a baseplate, or in a box top with tape, craft sticks, or straws.

Build A Paper Helicopter

Make a paper helicopter that actually flies! This is an easy STEM activity for young kids and older ones too. Learn about what helps helicopters rise into the air, with a few simple supplies.

Build A Rubber Band Car

Can you make a car go without pushing it or adding a motor? This rubber band-powered car is an awesome STEM project. There are lots of creative rubber band car designs, but you definitely need a rubber band and a way to wind it up!

Cardboard Tube Projects

Use all those cardboard rolls for awesome cardboard engineering activities. Make a roller coaster, a balloon powered car, a hand crank winch and more!

Cup Tower Challenge

Grab a bag of 100 cups at the grocery store and challenge the kids to build a tower with all 100! That will keep them busy. Grab a free printable too!

DIY STEM Toys

Make these one or more of these fun DIY STEM toys that comes with a printable guide.

Egg Drop Project

Have kids design a mechanism that will protect a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a height. Challenge your kids to only use what they can find and not buy.

Gumdrop Structures

What kid doesn’t like candy? How about building with it! Candy like gumdrops or marshmallows is ideal for building structures and sculptures of all kinds.

LEGO Engineering

Explore three exciting STEM challenges: building a tower, constructing a bridge, and city planning using LEGO bricks. Make sure to grab the free printable guides!

Marshmallow Tower Challenge

Build the tallest spaghetti tower that can hold the weight of one jumbo marshmallow. Test out those design and engineering skills with a few simple materials and a free printable!

Paper Bridge Challenge

Challenge your kiddos to build the strongest bridge possible from just paper! Plus, you can extend the activity by exploring other types of common materials!

Explore more ways to build bridges with our printable bridge building worksheets!

Paper Chain Challenge

Only one sheet of paper needed to get started with this super easy to set up STEM challenge. As long as your kiddo can use scissors safely, this is a great challenge to try! Perfect for different ages, groups, and team building!

Paper Clip Challenge

Grab a bunch of paper clips and make a chain. Are paper clips strong enough to hold weight?

Paper Grabber Challenge

Building something to grab an object… without using your hands! In this STEM Challenge, kids will use their creativity and engineering skills to build a grabbing tool made from paper!

Paper Plane Challenge

Design and make a paper plane to fly the longest distance. Plus, more fun paper plane challenge ideas to try!

Parachute Challenge

Experiment with different materials, size or shape to make the best parachute.

Pencil Projects

Keep STEM simple with fun STEM activities that use pencils. Make a pencil catapult, a pencil bridge, pencil tower and more!

STEM with Paper

Grab a pack of copy paper and give these easy STEM activities a try right NOW! Explore fantastic ways you can set up STEM activities with paper.

Straw Boats

Design a boat made from nothing but straws and tape, and see how many items it can hold before it sinks. Learn about simple physics while you test out your engineering skills.

Strong Spaghetti

It’s something you eat, but can it be used for an engineering challenge? Absolutely! Try this classic STEM challenge right away.

Three Little Pigs Challenge

What happens when you take a classic fairy tale like The Three Little Pigs and join it with an awesome STEM picture book called The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale written by Steve Guarnaccia? Of course, we had to come up with an easy STEM project to go along with it and a free printable pack too!

Elementary STEM… Try Tinkering

Tinkering is a great way to get kids interested in engineering and inventing. Have kids draw and design plans for a new invention. Ask questions! What works well? What doesn’t work well? What could be different? What could you change?

A simple tinkering station we like to use includes:

straws
pipe cleaners
colored tape
popsicle sticks
rubber bands
string
recycled items

Check out our STEM and engineering kits for kids! There’s even a DIY STEM Kit section!

Halloween, Christmas, and Winter STEM Activities…

Looking for fun STEM projects to fit in with a theme or holiday? STEM activities can be easily changed up by using materials and colors to fit a season or holiday.

Check out our STEM projects for all the major holidays/ seasons below.

STEM Resources to Get You Started

Here are a few resources that will help you introduce STEM more effectively to your students and feel confident yourself when presenting materials.

💡 Start with our free 5 Day Quick Start STEM Challenge Pack!

Printable STEM Pack for Kids

80+ Doable Engineering Projects in one convenient pack!

Full instructions with sample images
Activity-specific instruction sheets
Data Collection Sheets
Questions for Reflection
Architecture Building Cards: Try the tallest tower challenge
Bridge Building Cards: Explore different types of bridges to build your own.
Paper Chain STEM Challenge: Who can make the longest chain? Great icebreaker or quick challenge!
3 Little Pigs Architectural Pack: Design a house that won’t blow away!
Great marshmallow challenge: A classic challenge kids love!
Real-world STEM challenge lesson but don’t know where to start? Our easy-to-follow template shows the steps!
What’s the difference between a scientist and an engineer?
Crossword and word search with engineering vocabulary.
Engineering vocabulary cards
Design a one-of-a-kind invention and write about it with this 5-page activity!