Simple Science and STEM for Every Day

Thanksgiving STEM Challenge: Cranberry Structures

Don’t leave out Thanksgiving when you think of STEM challenges! We have a super fun and easy Thanksgiving STEM challenge for you. Building cranberry structures! Before you turn a bag of cranberries into cranberry sauce make sure to test out your engineering skills first. Cranberry structures make a perfect Thanksgiving science activity.

THANKSGIVING STEM ACTIVITY BUILDING CRANBERRY STRUCTURES!

Fun and simple Thanksgiving STEM activity building cranberry structures with kids.

CRANBERRY STEMS-GIVING

 What is STEM? STEM is science, technology, engineering, and math. Set your kids up for the future by adding simple projects like this one to your everyday play and learning. Plus, tons of STEM activities, like this one, can be set up inexpensively.

This is the time of year for cranberries! Grab a bag of them along with a box of toothpicks and see what kind of cranberry structures you can build with your kids!

This simple Thanksgiving STEM activity is included in our Thanksgiving science experiments and activities collection you won’t want to miss. Scroll down to see more!

Make cranberry sauce when you are finished and you won’t have any waste! You can also try our Cranberry Sensory Bin, Dancing Cranberry Experiment or Cranberry Secret Messages.

Invisible Ink

BUILDING CRANBERRY STRUCTURES

If you can’t use food for projects in your classroom or with your groups, try whipping up a batch of playdough like our no cook Thanksgiving playdough instead. We have quite a few homemade playdough recipes to try out. Roll the dough into “cranberry” shapes, and you are ready to build shapes and structures!

YOU WILL NEED:

  • Bag of Fresh Cranberries
  • Toothpicks
  • Flat Surface
Cranberry Structures Toothpicks and Cranberries

Click Here For Your FREE Printable Thanksgiving STEM Challenge!

SIMPLE BUILDING IDEAS TO TRY

  • Building houses…
  • Building shapes…
  • Making towers…
  • Making people…
  • Building Letters and numbers…
  • or have your kids copy what you make if they need encouragement!

Hint: Gumdrops are a great choice for building Christmas structures

Toothpicks and small cranberries encourage visual and fine motor skills for kids as well as motor planning. Finger dexterity and patience are a plus when building cranberry structures! Make sure to check out our cranberry oobleck too.

Cranberry Structures Thanksgiving Fine Motor Skills

Problem-solving, counting, and designing are all a part of building structures!

Cranberry Structures Thanksgivng Engineering Activity

Check out more fun building activities for kids! Plus, you may also like to try these easy and hands-on engineering activities for kids.

Building Structures with Cranberries

Engineering activities like these are so much fun and use simple materials. We have used gumdrops too. Don’t want to use food? You can always use playdough, styrofoam balls, or pool noodle pieces.

We also had fun finding the extra squishy cranberries and popping them! Try using a plastic knife {if appropriate} to cut open cranberries and check out the seeds. You can even paint with the juices.

Building with Cranberries and toothpicks STEM

Look what happens when you provide kids with a simple Thanksgiving STEM activity. So many ways to learn!

BUILDING CRANBERRY STRUCTURES FOR THANKSGIVING STEM

Click on the photos below to see more fun ideas for Thanksgiving!

  • Thanksgiving STEM Activitiies
  • Turkey Crafts
  • Thanksgiving Science Activities

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Comments

  1. April

    I’ve seen this done with marshmallows, candy, or grapes. I have to say that I love the seasonal twist of using cranberries. So clever! Thanks for sharing. I think I am going to do this with my kids.
    ✿April✿
    ✿Grade School Giggles✿

Trackbacks

  6. […] Little Bins for Little Hands has a ton of great STEM activities, especially if you live in K-2 land. I specifically love this cranberry activity because I’m #teamfreshcranberries not any of that canned stuff, and my former Kinder Teacher self loved the math connection to creating 2D and 3D shapes. I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but I feel like in many grade levels the math topic of shapes and geometry gets pushed back to the very end of the year, I’m teaching it in May when everything becomes an afterthought, and I don’t always give it the same focus it deserves. I love the idea of having students document each shape they create through a Seesaw challenge, so that they’re taking pictures of what they’re doing, explaining what characteristics define each shape, and making home-to-school connections. […]