Santa’s Sleigh STEM Challenge

Santa needs a sleigh in order to make his big night rounds. But what happens if Santa’s sleigh is down for repairs with no time to spare? He needs a new one of course, and that’s where your kids come into the picture! Are they up for this Santa’s Sleigh Christmas STEM challenge? Can they design and build Santa a new sleigh in time? We love easy and hands-on Christmas STEM activities!

Explore STEM This Holiday Season

Open-ended STEM activities like this Santa’s Sleigh building challenge are perfect for kids who love to design, build, and test new inventions! Encourage your young engineer with clever STEM challenges perfect for the season. Will they choose candy canes for sled runners?

I always like to put together a STEM supplies kit for each season or holiday. This season of course we have a Christmas tinker kit filled with fun but inexpensive supplies to go along with our Christmas STEM activities.

TIP: Head to the dollar store and look around the house for supplies! Christmas STEM can be fun, simple, and frugal!

This Santa STEM activity is the perfect way to fit in a fun afternoon activity and a little hands-on learning. I love how learning opportunities can present themselves in so many ways.

You can easily use this Christmas STEM challenge at home, in the classroom, or with a youth group for an awesome holiday activity. Also keep in mind that it’s perfect for individuals, 2 person teams, or small groups to work on together!

Use The Engineering Design Process For Christmas STEM

This season, why not pair the engineering design process with fun holiday themes including candy canes, gumdrops, Christmas trees… 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 maybe completed in any order.

READ MORE: STEM for Elementary Age kids

Remember, it’s ok to not 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 incredibly valuable life lessons for kids!

Read more about the Engineering Design Process and grab the free information guide.

Helpful STEM Resources To Get You Started

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
• Join us in the Club

Get your FREE printable Christmas STEM activities guide!

Santa’s Sleigh STEM Challenge

Let’s get started with our Santa STEM Challenge! How about we go through the design steps together to get some ideas? Print out the sheet below as encouragement for your kids!

1. ASK!

What’s the problem that needs to be solved? That’s pretty easy! We need to build Santa a new sleigh since his current sleigh is out of commission.

2. THINK!

What are some alternatives for Santa to use this Christmas Eve? What kind of sleigh is best for Santa? Do some research on Santa and his sleigh.

3. DESIGN!

Use our printable sheets below to map out your ideas, sketch a design.

4. BUILD!

Put that awesome design into action and build it. Gather supplies and get to work.

Make sure to supply a tinker kit to provide materials for building Santa’s sleigh.

5. TEST!

Maybe you could think of ways to test the sleigh. How many presents can it hold?

6. IMPROVE!

Maybe your sleigh didn’t hold as many presents as you hoped? Try again and create a bigger or stronger design,

Add this design process sheet to your activity to guide your kids as they develop cool ideas for Santa’s sleigh! Click on the black download button just below it.

Free Printable Santa STEM Challenge

Download the free printable Christmas STEM challenge and help Santa with a new sleigh.

Printable Christmas STEM Project Pack

200+ PAGES OF HOLIDAY THEME STEAM, STEM, Science, and Art!

• 25+ Christmas 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 holiday theme engineering pack with fun, problem-based challenges for kids to solve! NEW observation sheets included.
• Try a Santa’s Letter airplane challenge or take the gingerbread house-building challenge! 
• Explore the five senses with a specially designed Santa’s Lab pack.
• Try a mini nature study with your favorite type of Christmas tree.
• Try your hand at building shapes with gumdrop structure challenge cards or build shapes with jingle bells. Or try the Christmas-themed paper chain challenge!
• Christmas Screen-free Coding activities include algorithm games, binary code ornaments, and more!
• Explore 6+ Christmas Art Projects with famous artist-inspired activities that combine art history, process art techniques, and more with simple to-do ideas.