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Gobble, gobble! Jack and I had a lot of fun with this Flying Turkey STEM/STEAM activity-- releasing a balloon and hearing it make that swish, pffft sound is fun for kids and adults (I giggle every time at that pffft sound, haha), The anticipation of flight and a successful launch is exciting too! Below is how to build your own Flying Turkey. You'll Need Balloon Turkey Print Out (I found mine in MS Word) Tape Makers, crayons, or colored pencils (optional) Instructions 1)

Welcome back STEM Sparkers! Hope you're ready for the perfect Thanksgiving science experiment: hopping corn! You'll Need a clear glass container popping corn water baking soda white vinegar food coloring (optional) Instructions 1) Fill your glass container with water and add a couple drops of food coloring. 2) Add your baking soda and stir well until it is all dissolved. 3) Add a small handful of popping corn kernels. 4) Add the vinegar and watch the corn start to hop up and

Halloween is in STEM Spark's top 100 holidays (give or take 100; is that not the most engineering thing to say? ha), and we love doing STEM and STEAM related activities for Halloween (I mean, STEM is in the blog's name). So image how happy we were to find Geek& Co's Glow Stick Lab-- we could make our own glow sticks for tricking or treating on Halloween night! Science meets Halloween, swoon! Read below for our review on the lab and then a little further (further, yep right

STEM Spark friends and family, you may recall that a little over a year ago, I went about indie publishing my book Annie Aardvark: Adding Ants and creating a Kickstarter campaign to help with the illustration costs (you can check out the Kickstarter post here if that tickles your fancy). It was a dream come true to receive support from friends and family to have successfully funded Kickstarter and even better to see the book actually published. I feel #blessed and my sincer

Hi STEM Sparkers! We're very excited here at STEM Spark; we got to interview the co-author of Everyday Superheros:Women in STEM Careers (you can check out STEM Spark's review of the book here ), Erin Twamley! Below is a little bit about Erin, followed by our interview. Author Erin sharing her non-fiction children's books Erin Twamley is an educator and author. She is dedicated to engaging the next generation of learners in protecting and creating a sustainable planet thro

Let's fall for STEM! We're celebrating fall with this apple related science experiment [insert groan at our earlier pun], so grab that perfect fall accessory, the apple, and let's make it erupt! You'll Need Apple Baking Soda Vinegar Pan/Plate/Bowl Knife and Spoon Food coloring (optional) Instructions 1) Cut a hole on top of the apple using a knife (note: adults this is your queue to cut, and we hold no responsibility for your cutting technique), and then scoop out the rest

Hello STEM Sparkers! Welcome back to the Back to School Book Reviews; this one is the last one which means this post contains the Amazon e-gift card giveaway! The final book STEM Spark is reviewing is Stardust Explores Earth's Wonders . Hope you're ready for this review-- there's a quiz, I mean giveaway, at the end! You can check out the other Back to School Book Reviews here and here . Will your kids like it and/or will you hate it? Jack seemed interest in this book w

Welcome back STEM Sparkers for the next back to school book review! This time STEM Spark is reviewing the fun, STEM chapter book Mia Marcotte and the Robot written by Jeanne Wald and illustrated by Saliha Caliskan. It's definitely a book you want to download to your ROM (see what I did there? made a robot/computer joke)! We did receive an e-copy of Mia Marcotte and the Robot in exchange for our honest opinion of the book. Will your kids like it and/or will you hate it? I

Hello fellow STEM Sparkers! It's back to school time here in Phoenix, so we're loading up on fish. Oh wait, not a school of fish, school that teaches students, K-12. Now that the pun is out of the way, we'll be doing some back to school book reviews of various STEM children books during the whole month of August. Stick us through the end of the month because we plan to raffle of an Amazon gift card so that one lucky STEM Sparker can buy one of these cool STEM books that

Shark Week is coming up soon, and STEM Spark has some very good friends who love Shark Week. So to help our friends celebrate their love of Shark Week, STEM Spark came up with a Frozen Shark Dig STEAM Activity! You'll Need Tiny Plastic Shark Figures Water Bowl Plate/Tray Spoon Salt Instructions 1) Place tiny plastic shark figures in bowl. 2) Pour water in bowl over the sharks. 3) Freeze the water/sharks for 3-4 hours. 4) Remove frozen water/sharks from bowl onto a plate or t

Hello STEM Sparkers! Things have been a little hectic at STEM Spark HQ as we prepare for a move, but among all the chaos, we haven't forgotten to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon! NASA is of course celebrating, and you can check out all their cool celebrations here . Jack choose to celebrate the Moon landing by building his own spaceship out of cardboard boxes. Bobby and I were so busy helping him that I forgot to snap photos for how to build

STEM Spark wishes you a Happy Summer!!! Summer usually means more swimming for us here at STEM Spark, and we have the perfect STEM activity for swimming-- a pool noodle math game! It's guaranteed to make your math happy kid grin and your language happy kid groan. You'll Need A Foam Pool Noddle Scissors or Exacto Knife Permanent Marker Instructions 1) Cut the pool noodle into 10 pieces. This step should probably be done by an adult since scissors or an Exacto knife are in

Jack loves rainbows! I love rainbows! Scientists loves rainbows! I mean there are so many science websites out there explaining the science of rainbows (here's one from How Stuff Works ), which is totally great for explaining rainbow science to children. But what is even better than explaining the science of rainbows is making an edible rainbow out of candies! You'll Need Skittles Water A light colored plate (best for full rainbow color) Instructions 1) Arrange the Skittles

Happy Father's Day here in the States! We love celebrating and gift giving here at STEM Spark, so of course we have STEM inspired gifts for the father in your life. And since STEM Spark loves gift giving, we're giving away one of the sweetest, STEM related, father related picture books out there. Giveaway info below, and we hope everyone enjoys the holiday! (What did the dad angle say to the kid angle? I'm always right. 😏) 1) Circuit tie card from Makerspaces : 2) Person

I'm so excited! I'm on a panel for Phoenix FanFusion called "Take Chances, Make Mistakes, Get Messy! Fun DIY Science Projects." I'm on the panel with a biologist and two astronomers, and I can't wait to represent STEM Spark by sharing different science experiments with the public. And to tie into the "Fun DIY Science Projects," STEM Spark is going to review the Lauri Fun with Magnets kits and one lucky STEM Spark reader will win a kit (see the Rafflecopter below)! Will yo

May has been a fun, but busy month for STEM Spark. So busy that we forgot that we had created a Flower Sums worksheet! The Flower Sums worksheet is a fun way to encourage kids in math this spring. Just fill in the blank petals with various numbers, and then the child fills in the sum of those numbers in the center of the flower. There's an example Flower Sum for you to follow, and then you can vary the difficulty degree with small to large numbers, whole numbers to fractions,

That's right, we're celebrating May the Fourth here at STEM Spark! For those of you unfamilar with May the Fourth Be With You, it's an unofficial holiday celebrating the Star Wars franchise. It was derived by fans and is a pun on a famous line from Star Wars, May the Force Be With You. And I can't think of a more STEAM inspired holiday than May the Fourth-- there's so many fun STEAM crafts and activities to celebrate the day! One of the STEAM crafts we did here at STEM Spar

We're keeping with the theme of Earth Day and reuse on STEM Spark this week, and happily present this Plastic Egg Rocket experiment! Jack and I were excited to take some of his leftover plastic eggs and try out this science experiment we saw on Pinterest . You could even say we were egg-static! You'll Need Plastic Egg (No holes and breaks in half are requirements) Alka-Seltzer Tablets Water Instructions 1) Set the bottom part of the plastic egg on the grounds. We lucked ou

Happy Earth Day fellow STEM Sparkers! There are so many great ways to celebrate our wonderful Earth, and here on STEM Spark we can't think of a better way to celebrate than by reviewing and giving away this awesome Melissa and Solar System Floor Puzzle! Will your kids like it and/or will you hate it? Jack not only likes this puzzle, he loves it. He kinds of loves all puzzles, but since he's been learning about the solar system recently, he was really excited to open this p

Plastic eggs are soon to be filled with goodies as Easter approaches here in the States, and if you're like me, you wonder what you can do with all the leftover plastic eggs. Last year, Jack and I reused our plastics eggs as a counting game; see our video here . This year we're covering the art and engineering part of STEAM by remaking our plastic eggs into parachutes. Read on for how to do this eggcellent (yep, I went there) STEAM project! You'll Need Plastic Eggs Pipe Cl