Unique Winter STEM Activities for the Classroom

Winter is coming…or it may already be here depending on where you live. Regardless of the climate you’re in, winter brings so many exciting opportunities to participate in seasonal activities. The winter fun doesn’t end on January 1st! You can start celebrating the season now, and continue long after the holidays have ended.

Use your students’ excitement for seasonality to foster a love of STEAM learning. There are so many ways to make STEAM lessons topical for wintertime. In this article, we have compiled 8 winter STEAM activities to get you started!

8 Unique Ideas for Winter STEAM Activities

Holiday STEAM: December

December is full of cheerful holidays from a variety of cultures. Celebrate them with a STEAM activity!

Challenging your students to build a gingerbread house is a fun and inclusive way to connect STEAM to December holidays. Give your students a relative size to build to, then add criteria to help them practice STEAM concepts. Below are some examples of ways to make the activity productive in a STEAM curriculum.

• •  Task students with creating a door that can open and close from the side. Then, have them create windows that open and close from the top.
  • Ask students to calculate the square footage of their gingerbread houses in different units of measure (inches, centimeters, etc.)
  • Encourage students to utilize as many shapes as they can in their construction. Then, ask them to calculate the perimeter of all of the squares, the circumference of all of the circles, and the area of all of the triangles.
  • Challenge students to create decorations and designs that are symmetrical.
  • Using icing, candy, and other materials, see if students can decorate the sides of the house with primary and secondary colors, alternating on each side.
  • Assign monetary values to the building materials. For example, each graham cracker equals 25 cents, each gum drop equals a penny, each ounce of icing equals a dollar, and so on. Ask students to calculate the cost of their house as they go by measuring materials.

These suggestions can be adjusted to suit your students’ grade and skill level. For more ideas on this project, check out this article from Sadlier.

Computer Science Education Week: December 4-10

In early December, we celebrate all things computer science! This annual event encourages students and educators alike to embrace computer science in the classroom. Learn more about Computer Science Education Week.

This week is the perfect opportunity to try out one of our TinkRworks projects. LaunchPad and TinkRsynth, for grades 3-8 and 6-8 respectively, allow students a hands-on opportunity to sharpen their computer science and programming skills. Plus, both projects are reusable, meaning that more than one class can benefit from them!

Winter Seasonal: January

After the December holidays end, keep the winter fun going with an easy, budget-friendly, and accessible STEAM activity.

Engage students in a thrilling physics experiment by building snowball catapults. Using everyday materials like popsicle sticks, rubber bands, and spoons, students can design and construct their own catapults. Once built, they can experiment with launch angles and force to see how far they can catapult their snowballs. This activity combines engineering principles with a good dose of winter fun.

See an example of a homemade snowball catapult here!

Black History Month: February

February is Black History Month. During this time, we celebrate and uplift the stories of Black history-makers and their achievements in the face of adversity. Use this time to teach your students about the Black scientists, technologists, engineers, artists, and mathematicians who have shaped history.

Challenge each student to research a history-maker and create a poster illustrating and honoring their contributions to STEAM. To help your students get started, you can hang these posters from WeAreTeachers in your classroom!

National Bird Feeder Month: February

Did you know that February is National Bird Feeder Month? Now you do! This month is particularly challenging for wild birds, as finding food can be exceptionally difficult. Congress established the month-long holiday in 1994 to raise awareness and encourage people to leave food out for birds.

Celebrate this month with your students by creating bird feeders out of recycled materials and filling them with feed that is appropriate for the animals in your environment. Visit our free makerspace lesson library, TinkRpedia, to get all the information you need for this project!

Love your Robotics Day: February 7

This wacky holiday gives us the chance to appreciate and celebrate the importance of robotics in our world. Robots can be found at the checkout line in grocery stores, in baggage carousels in airports, and even as waiters in tech-savvy restaurants. They also carry out important functions in medicine, transportation, and meteorology. These devices make our lives easier, safer, and healthier.

TinkRbot is a fun hands-on STEAM project that is perfect for grades 3-5. Through this project, students can explore the fundamentals of robotics and programming. Find out more about the project here, and download the lesson sampler.

For younger students, we suggest using our All About Me Robot STEAM Download to introduce STEAM concepts. This activity allows students K-3 to create posters showcasing the different elements of STEAM education in which they are interested.

International Day of Women and Girls in Science: February 11

Although Women’s History Month isn’t until March, we acknowledge the contributions of women and girls to the science world on February 11. This is an important day to teach inclusivity in STEAM. International Day of Women and Girls in Science creates an opportunity to inspire all students to pursue STEAM fields in their studies and future careers.

Download our Interesting Women in Science Activity to teach your class about the notable women who pioneered change and innovation in STEAM fields.

National Engineering Week: February 18-24

Engineering is an important part of STEAM. This term encompasses a variety of concepts, methods, and skill sets that heavily rely on math and science principles. Celebrate engineering with your class at the end of February for National Engineering Week.

Many of the TinkRworks projects teach and illustrate several foundational engineering concepts. Download our TinkRworks Project Catalog to explore our variety of projects that help students hone their engineering skills with grade-appropriate curriculum.

Bonus Winter STEAM Activities Inspiration

• Eli Whitney’s Birthday (December 8)
• Roller Skates Patented (December 9)
• Astronomer Annie Jump Cannon’s Birthday (December 11)
• South Pole First Reached (December 14)
• Apollo 17 Returned to Earth (December 19)
• First Film Shown (December 28)
• X-Ray Discovered (January 5)
• Telegraph First Demonstrated (January 6)
• Amelia Earhart Flew Solo Across Pacific (January 11)
• National Puzzle Day (January 29)
• Love your Robotics Day (February 7)
• Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (February 22)
• DNA Discovered (February 28)

Conclusion

Now that you are inspired and full of ideas, you can celebrate the winter season through STEAM with your students all season long! Once again, you can build off of these suggestions to create activities and projects tailored specifically to the needs and interests of your students.

For more fun holidays and events to celebrate in your classroom this winter, check out TeacherVision’s calendar. Have a great, STEAM-tacular winter!