Welcome back teachers and parents to all ages. Here I have compiled some STEAM projects that we have done with our after school (elementary) kiddos. The inspiration for these came from all over the place, books, blogs, friends and libraries, but they all have a little bit of a spin on them. All of the following projects have been (more or less) successfully made with K-5th graders and tested on 8-12th graders (i.e. my siblings) so hopefully there's a little something for everyone. Supplies will be listed for all projects in the "Supplies" section but more detailed lists will also be at the top of each individual project as well.

This instructable will also be broken up into the 5 branches of STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Art and Math) But its almost impossible to find a project that lies solely within one category.

Pandemic Note- With so many school districts going virtual I have also tried to include digital versions, that could be completed at home, when applicable. I have also tried to keep materials easy to find and low cost to accommodate lowered budgets, make and take kit potential, and easy access to learning at home.

Photo/Link disclaimer: All photos (except certain charts(binary) are my own, None of the links attached are my own, they may include ads, they are extra resources that I found useful but are not necessary to the projects.

Supplies

An overarching list of supplies needed for each project, more details can be found in the corresponding step for each activity. Please check there before buying supplies as some projects have different supply options based on where you are doing them and how many students you have. (*)'s will denote an online option listed in that step.

Frozen Oobleck (step 1)-measurements roughly per student

1/2c Cornstarch
1/4c Water
Ice cube trays -silicon or plastic work well
Freezer access

Binary Bracelets/Ornaments(Step 2)*

3 colors of Pony beads
Pipe cleaners or string
Binary chart

Window Efficiency(Step 3)

Small cardboard box-
Thermometer -preferably digital
Glass/cup of water
Ice cubes
Wax Paper
Plastic Wrap
Cloth
Foil
A Sheet of Glass (if possible)
Timer (optional)
Hair dryer
Paper and Pen

Snowmen (Step 4)

Paper
Tape
Scissors (optional)
Ruler (optional)

Winter Words (Step 5)*

Camera
Printer (optional)

Geometric Snowflakes (Step 6)*

Blue and White Paper
Scissors
Glue

Pattern Blocks
Blue and White Paint (optional)

Step 1: Science-frozen Oobleck for the Littles

For a simple spin on a project that students of all ages love, and even the littles can participate in, we are freezing oobleck. There are a couple ways you can execute this project to accommodate the freezing time.

Make the oobleck in the morning and freeze it until afternoon-This is great for classroom teachers but can cause a fuss with double clean up in one day.
Make it a two day project, mixing one day and freezing overnight-This one could allow for two play opportunities and breaks up the clean up time.
Make the oobleck yourself ahead of time and bring out the pre-frozen pieces for playtime-this one expedites clean up time but kids will miss out on mixing.

Supplies:(per student)- These are not absolute measurements

1/2c Cornstarch
1/4-1/3c Water
Bowl(s) to mix in- Something with a pour spout works well
Food Coloring or Liquid Watercolor Paints (optional)-Liquid watercolor should wash off hands better than food coloring
Ladle and/or funnel(optional)- helps with filling ice molds
Trays of some sort to contain the mess-We used frisbees in school, at home I used a baking pan, cookies sheets work well or any flat tray with a lip or edge.
Ice Cube Trays- silicon and plastic both worked well for me
Freezer Access

Prep/Think About: Decide if each student will make their own or if you will make a big batch and disperse after frozen. Individual bowls are great if you have a small group, as kiddos can practice measuring, pour control, and mixing. With our larger group we made a couple bigger batches and let our kids work in groups. The amounts listed in the supplies section are approximates, you may need more or less water depending on how your cornstarch mixes and you may want more or less oobleck per kid.

The Project:

Add 1/2c cornstarch to a bowl and add 1/4c water.
Stir together, I found scraping down a side and across the bottom of the bowl worked best to mix without encountering too much resistance.
Add a few drops of food coloring or liquid watercolor.
Add more water or cornstarch depending on consistency. You want to feel some resistance when stirring but not have dry clumps when the oobleck is sitting. A good test is being able to quickly scoop some up, and having it still melt back off your spoon.
Once mixed students can play with this concoction or it can be poured into ice cube trays right away.
Freeze for around 1 hour
Once frozen, we gave each kid a frisbee to play on (contains the mess a little better) and passed out oobleck shapes.

Results:

At first the oobleck will melt in their hands and be extremely liquid, after a little bit of warming it up, you will be able to mess with the outer layer of your shape and rub off pieces or move them around (depending on your shape), watch them melt back into your frozen shape and try moving them again. Once enough has melted you'll be able to break your shapes up a bit more or play with the rest. You will need to hold them for a bit before they start to melt and I found mine went through a phase of super liquid-y before getting to a more oobleck form, so don't worry if your oobleck is behaving strangely.

Step 2: Tech-Binary Ornaments

Binary ornaments are a great way to introduce students to the language of computers as well as translating and deciphering. This project is relatively easy to make but may trip up littles when translating letters into number form, this one may be better saved for the bigger kids or done as a partner activity. If translating looks like it may be tricky to your students, try coming up with a handful of words to use before hand and practice translating together, short words are key and can then be left on the front board or made into printable cheat sheets. This project isn't only for winter either, if the holidays have passed you by or just aren't your jam, try making bracelets or keychains instead, with any words you want.

External Resources (and by that I mean videos)

https://youtu.be/DM_qfSQPDvg - Brainpop intro to binary
https://youtu.be/M41M9ATm49M - a quick intro to why computers use binary
https://youtu.be/2Z03p3yhGmk -a little more in depth explanation of what binary is
https://youtu.be/cEWEtOphb1E -Just a silly cat spelling in binary video

Prep/Think about

If you have younger children, maybe make up a cheat sheet of popular words for them to copy, focusing more on patterns and motor skills than on the actual language. Decide on one language of binary and stick to it, otherwise students may get confused looking at other's creations. Print out binary alphabet sheets for each table or pair of students.

Binary Ornaments

Beads in at least three different colors
Pipe Cleaners or string.
Print out of Binary Code

The Project:

I attached a binary chart that I found on the internet, but if you have a specific strain of binary you want, feel free to find your own. I also recommend keeping word lengths on the shorter, each of the ones in my pictures are three letter words but use different versions of binary, the blue and white one corresponds to the chart I have included and says ICE.

Have students first work on translating their letters into binary numbers.
Next they will need to pick a color for 0's, 1's and a divider color. Find enough of each color to cover each 0 and 1 and enough dividers to split letters.
String them onto a pipe cleaner or string in the order of their binary code.
Twist the ends together, making a loop to hang on a tree if you would like; otherwise cut or twist excess pipe cleaner under the beads to prevent it poking your wrist.

Online:

Have students write out their binary in a color code on a spreadsheet or as 1's and 0's in a document then challenge other students to decipher them.

Step 3: Tech-Window Efficiency

Learn about the tech that goes into keeping us warm in the winter and cool in the summer, with windows! Explore the insulating properties of different materials and learn why our windows aren't made of plastic.

Window Efficiency

Small cardboard box- open on one side and big enough to comfortably hold your water cup
Thermometer -preferably digital
Glass/cup of water
Ice cubes
Wax Paper
Plastic Wrap
Cloth
Foil
A Sheet of Glass (if possible)
Timer (optional)
Hair dryer
Paper and Pen

The Prep:

Decide with your class what types of "windows" you think will work best and acquire those items ahead of time.
Prep your box, you want a smallish box that is free of debris and that you can relatively easily cover the open side of. You will also want to prep a piece of each material that will fit over the openning of our box.
Make sure your thermometer works and has batteries if necessary.
Decide on a time limit to let your room "warm" for each test. I used 1 min.
Before starting the experiment have students make predictions of what they think will keep the cold in best and why.

The Activity:

Pour a glass of cold water and add 2-3 ice cubes, record temp of water, place in box and blow your hairdryer at it on warm for 1 minute , record the temp. This is your control temp. With nothing there, your water warmed X-degrees over 1 min.
Get your water as close to your starting temp again (record this), place in box and cover the openning of your box with one of your insulators. After another minute of hair dryer-ing remove your "window" and temp your water again. Record the Window covering used and the final water temp.
Repeat step 3 until you have tested all of your "windows". Which material did the best? Worst? Why?

Things to concider:

Keep the hair dryer on the same setting each time and the same distance from your box.
Try to get your starting temps as close to the same as possible.

Take it a step farther(a similar, messier, activity):

If your kiddos have mastered insulating their "homes" talk about how animals keep warm in their winter homes. Do some research and if you have the means visit a zoo and talk to zookeepers about different animals' winter coats and what kind of homes they live in. This can be a discussion added on to the above experiment or try the below for some more hands-on animal learning.

Some Questions to think about:

Do some animals change homes between winter and summer?
What about winter coats vs summer coats?
Fur vs feathers vs scales?
Do animal homes and coats differ based on how close they live to the earth's poles?
What about within the same species? (ei. Polar bears vs grizzly bears or parrots vs skuas)

Supplies:

Fur -I would use fake but if you're a hunter or know one...
Cotton Balls
Polar Fleece
Wool Sock
Lard (shortenning like crisco)
Ice water in a bowl or some snow
Balloon and straw
Ask students what they think would keep them warm

I've seen a few ways of doing this project so try what you think will work best for your group. The only differences are how to keep your insulators against your student's hands/fingers. I've seen filling a sandwich bag with your insulator and having little ones put their hands in it one at a time, wrapping your insulator to fingers with plastic wrap, or using rubber/latex gloves. Personally I think the first option is the best, and if you want to keep hands clean put your insulator in a zip lock bag, flip another baggie inside out and put it inside the full one and zip them together; thus creating a sort of insulator mitten.

The Activity:

Prep all your insulators, however you are going to keep them on your testers.
Have students take turns sticking their hands in the water with each insulaor, as well as once without.
For the balloon, this will allow you to test air, you could similarily inflate a zip lock mitten. PUt your student's hand (or finger) in the balloon, inflate with the straw so the air doesn't escape, dunk your balloon/hand.
Discuss your observations,

Which kept you the warmest and which didn't?
What animals have similar coats and where do they live.

Step 4: Engineering-Snowmen

Supplies:

Scrap Paper
Tape
Scissors (optional)
Rulers(optional)
Markers (optional)

Prep/think about:

If your children are like mine, and you tell them to build the tallest snowman, they may try to stick it to the ceiling. For my second group I told them the tallest snowman, that still looks like a snowman. Moral of the story, decide your parameters ahead of time and lay them out very specifically. I also failed to give my students ideas for the first group, which resulted in a lot of crumpled snowballs. In hind sight, we should have brainstormed building techniques. With my littles we talked more about building and what is structurally better, and they made some much more self-standing snowmen.

For the Activity:

Discuss construction/building techniques, rolling paper vs crumbling vs origami vs making boxes etc. and their strengths for building taller without toppling.
Split students into teams if desired and, if you want a fair contest, count out the same number of sheets of paper and amount of tape. Otherwise disperse resources amongst students and give them a time limit.
At the end of time measure the tallest free standing snowman. For added winners, judge based on which can withstand a breeze from a fan and which looks the most like a snowman.
Discuss why some snowmen stood up better than others.

Step 5: Art- Winter Words

This activity is based off an assignment my sister had in a photography class a few years ago, with a little influence from an assignment I had back in 8th grade. This is a fun art activity, that gives kids a chance to move around as well as learn about different perspectives, spelling, cameras and editing. If you are a single grade classroom, this one is better for older kids, but could also be done in teams with a range of ages in each group, if you can partner with another class. If you have enough teachers it also works to split into groups and have a teacher in charge of the camera.

Prep/Think About:

The goal of this project is to find letters in your school or nature and make winter themed words with them. Before starting this project you will need to decide how you will split your kids and where they can take pictures. As an elementary after school program we had enough teachers that we split into groups and had the kids tell our teachers what to photograph. Since we could keep a teacher with each group we decided anywhere on school grounds is fair game.

A good mini project before starting photographing is to have kids brainstorm words that they can make.

Supplies:

Camera of some sort -we used iPads
Photo editing software of some kind or a printer- I'm going to reference google draw a lot because it is free and easily accessible, as well as a pretty simple to use option.

For the Activity:

Split kids into groups and decide how pictures will be taken (teacher in charge of camera, kids take turns, etc.) and lay out the boundaries of where pictures can be taken (playground, around town, classroom).
Explain to students that they are in charge of finding letters in found places, they can not use printed text that is an intentional letter.*
Set a time limit and send groups out to gather letter pictures.
Once all groups have returned you can keep them split or come together. For a lower tech option(good for littles) print out the pictures and cut let them make words with the pictures like they would letter blocks. For a higher tech option using any photo editing or photo accepting software (google drawings works just fine for a simple approach) have kids digitally put the letters together to make words. For older students a photoshop aspect could be used to have the letters digitally "cut out" and put onto a new background (think brick wall or signs) to spell words.
For a fun display case/show and tell print out or glue together final words and hand them up for the school or other classes to see.

*A google search of "Found Alphabet" or the book "Alphabet Everywhere" by Elliott Kaufman have some good examples of things to look for.

Online:

Chances are if your school district is virtual, your students are probably 1:1, and chances are, if your district is 1:1, your kiddos have access to a camera.

Have them use that camera to take some pictures around their homes or in their yard (With parent permission! We don't want broken devices!).
Walk students through uploading a picture to a google doc or google classroom (or however your district is communicating assignments)
Compile these into a document that all students have access to and let them explore moving the letter pictures around to build the words in anything from a google drawing to photoshop.

Step 6: Math-Geometric Snowflakes

Who doesn't like building with those colorful little shape tiles that every school seems to have an abundance of. This casual project lets kids explore pattern making as well as learn about symmetry and practice those cutting skills!

Supplies:

White and Blue Paper
Scissors
Glue

Pattern Block Tiles
Blue and White Paint (optional)

Prep/Think About:

Depending on student ability and materials used either print out enough sheets of pattern block shapes for each student to have at least one sheet. If students are too little cut the shapes ahead of time. OR if you have tiles painting half white and half blue will make your snowflakes a little more realistic but could also be just as fun with the original multicolor shapes- spray paint is probably your best bet if you want to paint. For elementary schoolers I would cut out a sheet for each kid and have them cut out any additional shapes they needed.

Students could also use this website for a virtual option. To change colors in mass you can circle your group of shapes and once all are selected, choose a different color, they should all be that color. You can also dupicate shapes in mass, so I started by making a bunch of each shape, turning them blue, doubling them, and turning the doubles tan. https://www.coolmath4kids.com/manipulatives/pattern-blocks

The Project:

Have students make their own geometric snowflakes using tiles or paper shapes. For an interesting learning opportunity talk about how snowflakes are formed (environmentally and pattern/symmetry) and how different environments (temperature, moisture content etc.) can change that. Here are a couple good links on snowflake formation:

From the NOAA- a short article with very nice pictures~ https://scijinks.gov/snowflakes/
The same website but you can explore how different temps. effect flakes~ https://scijinks.gov/snow-crystals/
A cool simple video on how snowflakes form~https://youtu.be/-6zr2eLpduI
A video on snowflake formation for littles~ https://youtu.be/7AeiwLhFuFQ
A Page from NASA about different types of snow~ https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/183517main_snowcrystals.pdf

Make Some Snow-(variations and what your kiddos gain):

PAPER- Have students cut shapes out-this is a good cutting exercise to build hand-eye coordination, especially since the shapes don't have to be exact to make a snowflake.
ALL-Use shapes (tiles or paper) to have students make snowflake shapes. Challenge them to have no gaps in their designs (works best when using two colors, one for background, one for snowflake.)
DISPLAY- For something to display/take home have students draw out their snowflakes on a separate sheet of paper and color them in OR glue down their paper shapes.
Have students make designs that are symmetrical. Talk about lines of symmetry and see who can make the pattern with the most.

Online:

Have students use the website (https://www.coolmath4kids.com/manipulatives/pattern-blocks) to make their snowflakes
Have students screenshot their creations and send them to you or add them to a google doc/drawing where they can be compiled and the whole class could be shown together as snowflakes.
Showing the whole class together can allow for discussion of what students did the same or different and how no two of the snowflakes are exactly alike.