As we head into the heat of summer, are you planning on using STEAM activities in your summer lesson plans?
STEAM brings together science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. STEAM activities are often fun for kids, but it goes beyond that. Studies have shown STEAM activities help students improve in science, math, and literacy.
When it comes to preparing kids for the real world and future careers, STEM gets a lot of talk, but STEAM is where it’s at. STEAM activities help foster creativity and boost critical thinking and problem solving skills. A few benefits of STEAM activities include:
- Observing the world around you
- Spatial awareness
- Focusing on process, not just product
And art opens up minds a lot for kids. While most see math and science as right or wrong subjects, most see art as more open ended. Less pressure to get it right leads to more creativity.
3 Cool STEAM activities
Why not bring some summer STEAM activities to your classroom. I’ve made it easy for you.
Summer STEAM activities — mosaics
Mosaics are images made of tessera, small pieces of glass, stone, or other materials. Students might be familiar with or intrigued by photo mosaics, in which photos are used as the tessera to create a larger image.
Introduce mosaics by showing a variety of examples. If you have mosaics in your school or community, you could reference them to help students connect.
You can link mosaics to studies of Mesopotamia, ancient Greece and Rome, Muslim architecture, or even contemporary art.
In this case, students will make mosaics from paper. They’ll work with shape, color, and fine motor skills. This is a great use of paper scraps or old magazines, making it a green activity too!
Have students use small bits of torn paper to create their mosaics. Once students are familiar with the technique, they could use mosaic to express other ideas: class rules, a key scene from their reading,
Get How to Make Paper Mosaics to use for summer STEAM (or any other time of year!):
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Summer STEAM activities — skip counting
Skip counting helps kids develop calculation fluency. This essential math skill is a starting place for learning multiplication and division.
Using a number chart, demonstrate skip counting aloud, coloring each number as you say it. Start by skip counting by 2s (2, 4, 6, 8 …). Once you’ve established the pattern, see if students can continue it.
Try skip counting next with 10s or 5s.
Make a skip counting by 5s banner for your room. Give students white paper and paper of another color. Have them place a colored flag for each number up to the number you are skip counting by. Have them write the skip counting numbers on the white paper. For example, red, red, red, red, white labeled 5. Red, red, red, red, white labeled 10 … and so on.
You can also use worksheets for skip counting practice. Connect the dots and find the pattern activities that bring art into this math activity. Skip counting puzzles pair skip counting, and visual images to help students master this skill.
Summer STEAM activities — natural disasters project
Students can learn research and presentational skills in the natural disasters project. Get a step-by-step guide to a natural disaster research project.
Here are a few ways to bring more STEAM activities into your summer lesson plans for a natural disasters project:
- Look for natural disasters or a specific type of disaster in the news.
- Search for art about your type of natural disaster. This could be photographs, painting, movie scenes, dance, music, or any other artistic medium.
- Discuss the science behind the natural disaster.
- Research how scientists study these kinds of disasters and what people are doing about them.
- Encourage students to ask their own questions about the natural disaster.
- Have students create an artistic representation of their natural disaster.
- Have students pair words and visuals to present their report.
Summer is hot, and so is STEAM. It’s time to bring more STEAM activities into your classroom. The good news is that it’s not hard to weave STEAM activities into your lesson plans!
What’s your favorite STEAM activity that you’ve used in your classroom?
FREE Paper Mosaic Templates
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