Blog

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,

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers here in the States! Shopping for mom can be hard for some people (psst, more than a gift, we just want a non-interrupted nap), so I've rounded-up some STEM inspired gifts that hopefully hit the standard deviation with the mom in your life (hint, hint Jack). 1) Hidden Figures Book (or Movie) 2) Periodic Table Shoes 3) Geode Stemless Wine Glasses 4) Women in Science Poster 5) Pi Symbol Infinity Scarf 6) Mother Periodic Elements Tee Shirts 7) S

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

Our STEM Spark friend Stephanie B. (hi Stephanie!) suggested that we do the edible science experiment rain cloud in a jar, and although we've done this one a few times before, we couldn't think of a better month to finally share the experiment with the rest of our STEM Spark friends! Because April brings April showers; or in our case, rain clouds in jars! You'll Need Clear jar Water Canned Whipped Cream (like Reddi Whip) Blue Food Coloring Instructions 1. Fill the clear jar

Alright, we're wrapping up Women's History Month here at STEM Spark with a free, downloadable poster of Sally Ride! I have a special tie to Sally Ride, as it was with a Sally Ride Grant and Lab at my elementary school that furthered my interest in STEM. Per NASA's website , " Sally Ride is best known as the first American woman in space. Following her death on July 23, 2012 at the age of 61, she also is being remembered as a soft-spoken physicist who wanted to inspire young

Hello STEM Sparkers! STEM Spark hopes you all are enjoying your March and Women's History Month. This week's post combines our love of STEM, picture books and history, so without further ado here's the list of ten picture books that feature Women in STEM. Check out one to all ten from your local library or bookstore! 1) Hedy Lamarr's Double Life: Hollywood Legend and Brilliant Inventor (People Who Shaped Our World) 2) A Computer Called Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Help

STEM Spark loves Women in STEM. STEM Spark loves NASA. STEM Spark loves Lego. So put them all together, and STEM Spark loves the Women of NASA Lego set! We're going to review this product a little different this month. Since it's Women's History Month here in the States, we're going to share a little bit of history about each woman featured in the Women of NASA Lego set! Photo Credit Lego Margaret Hamilton Margaret Hamilton is a computer scientist, systems engineer, and bu

Happy Women's History Month here in the US! To celebrate, STEM Spark is going to do special posts centered around women in STEM. First up is STEM Champion Annie Easley. Annie Easley was a mathematician, computer programmer, and rocket scientist. Annie Easley worked at NASA, where she worked on one of the first-ever computer programs to enable space navigation. This computer program was used on the Centaur project, which is still considered one of NASA’s most important resea

Dr. Seuss Day, aka Read Across America Day, is on March 2nd this year! And I can't think of a better way to celebrate than by making some Non-Newtonian Fluid, aka Oobleck ! The Oobleck can also be dyed green, making it a great St. Patrick Day's science experiment as well! You'll Need Box of Corn Starch Water Measuring cups A Bowl or Pie Tin Spoon Food coloring (optional) Paper towels, paper ads, paper table cloth, or newspaper to cover your working surface to make clean up e