TK Winter STEM Lab

 After taking a break for all of the holiday activities, it was time to resume our TK Labs. We began in January with a Winter Themed STEM Lab. With 20 TK kids (all 4/5 years old), we run 10 activities with 2 kids at each station. Because of their short attention span, we have them cycle through five of the 10 activities the first session, and two weeks later we run the same activities, and they cycle through the remaining five. This process is working well so far. The kids love their STEM labs and are sad on the alternate Fridays when we don't run them.

The ten activities for the Winter Lab are as follows:

• Release the snowman from the block of ice -- I froze  small plastic snowmen into ice cubes along with a piece of yarn which stuck out from the cube. We talked about what might make the ice "disappear" and free the snowmen. Each student had a container of warm water in which they dipped their ice cube until the snowman was freed.

• Penguin Magnet Activity -- Using a preprinted page cut and glued to a paper plate ocean, the kids use a magnetic wand to move around a penguin with a paper clip attached to him. This was a big hit.

• Dress the Snowman -- I put a snowman template in a sheet protector, and they used play doh to dress up the snowman.

• Drive in Snow -- This was probably their favorite. I made fake snow, and they drove Matchbox cars through it. It really cleaned up pretty easily, but was still not my favorite activity. I bought the Steve Spangler Insta Snow Powder from Amazon. I actually bought three bags last year and am still using those bags. It doesn't take much powder to make a ton of snow. 

• Animal Hibernation -- This activity did not go over as well as I had hoped. I may do some adjustments before the second rotation. The idea was to construct different areas for hibernating animals. I had pictures of the animals, laminated and clipped to binder clips to help them stand. The kids didn't seem to enjoy the activity or even really listen as we talked about hibernation. I think I might get a couple of plastic bears and let them build caves for them, instead of using the pictures and having lots of animal choices. (I love the fact that in this job I am always learning and able to adjust based on what I learn.)

• Number Match -- I made cards to match numerals and different numbers of snowflakes. We like to have a couple of quiet/do alone activities to break up all of the ones that need adult supervision or interaction.
• Snowman Shape Puzzles -- These were 3-piece "puzzles" based on shape matching which then created an entire snowman. (kind of like the above activity)

• Snowstorm in a Jar -- This was our "science experiment" station, even more thrilling than releasing the frozen snowman. We used water colored with a little white paint, baby oil, and Alka Seltzer tablets to create the storm. It did create a sensation; they like to see anything that works like "magic."     Click here to see directions for experiment.

• Snowball Toss -- They threw balled up pieces of white paper into a garbage can. Always fun!!
• Mystery Winter Coloring Sheet -- This was another of those "quiet" activities. I found a simple color-by-number penguin coloring sheet for them.

We alternated the quiet/busier activities around the room. The kids rotated about every 2 minutes. They did not have time to get restless or disinterested. We normally have about five adults in the lab helping out, but have done it with three. I highly recommend doing TK STEM labs if you can. It is so much fun seeing how excited they get about what we think of as simple or ordinary things.