4 Valentine’s STEM Activities
Valentine’s is one of my favorite times of year, especially in the classroom. With all the excitement in the air, I like to capitalize on students’ positive energy and bring love into our learning. One of the best areas to incorporate holidays is STEM. Valentine’s STEM activities are perfect activities to get some hands on learning each week, or to use during classroom parties!
Activity 1:Candy Heart Tower
Students will love designing and creating the tallest tower possible using candy hearts and popsicle sticks. Students will practice engineering and display an understanding of structures while they create a tower that will hopefully be the tallest in class.
Materials Needed
Popsicle sticks
Candy hearts
Instructions
Present background information on candy hearts and towers.
Introduce the challenge of building the tallest tower possible with only these two materials.
Pass out supplies to students.
Give students time to plan and build their tower.
Measure each tower and lead students in a class reflection.
Benefits
Students get to practice the engineering process while collaborating with their classmates.
Activity 2: 3D Heart Puzzle
Overview
Allow students to practice geometry while also making a cute and fun 3D Valentine’s heart puzzle. This step-by-step experience allows students to create the puzzle pieces themselves, and then solve the puzzle!
Materials Needed
Cardstock or construction paper
Tape or glue
Instructions
Present the slide show to give proper background information on puzzles.
Pass out materials to make the pieces.
Guide your students (or play our how-to video for them) on how to make the pieces.
Allow students to solve the puzzle. Scaffold as necessary with different templates.
Benefits
Students will gain a better understanding of how right triangles work and fit together.
Activity 3: Candy Heart Fortress
Overview
Protect the queen at all costs by building a fortress that can withstand having candy hearts thrown at it!
Materials Needed
Candy hearts
Queen cut out
Instructions
Present background information on fortresses.
Introduce the challenge of building a fortress that can protect the queen from having candy hearts thrown at her.
Pass out supplies to students.
Give students time to plan and build their fortress.
Test each shelter by throwing candy hearts at it, and lead students in a class reflection.
Benefits
Students get to practice the engineering process while collaborating with their classmates.
Activity 4: Heart Chain
Class chains are fun and easy, but put a holiday spin on them by making them heart shaped! Who can build the longest chain out of a set amount of paper?
Materials Needed
Construction paper
Tape or staplers
Instructions
Present background information on links and chains.
Introduce the challenge of building the longest possible heart chain out of five pieces of construction paper.
Pass out supplies to students.
Give students time to plan and build their chain.
Measure each chain and establish which was the longest. Lead students in a class reflection.
Benefits
Students get to practice the engineering process while collaborating with their classmates.
Grab yours here!
STEM is such an important field for our students. The amount of STEM jobs that will be available to them in the future is growing daily. Give them a dose of holiday and STEM fun with these awesome activities!
Make them yourself or save yourself some time by grabbing our bundle here! Each STEM activity comes with:
An inclusive slideshow that will walk your students through each step.
A student planning sheet
Teacher directions
Completion certificates for students.
You can even check out our STEM Mega Bundle that includes:
4 Halloween STEM challenges
4 Christmas STEM challenges
4 Valentines STEM challenges
4 St. Patrick’s Day STEM challenges
4 Easter STEM challenges
Don’t wait! Bring STEM into your classroom today!
