3 Tips to Encourage STEM skills at Home

Whether you are a homeschool parent or a mom with littles simply trying to keep them busy and learning at home, it is so easy to incorporate STEM skills in daily learning activities or just play time!

There are SO many benefits to STEM education, including creativity, critical thinking, and simply learning about the world around us! And the other great thing is that it is so easy to introduce STEM at home with your young children. Here are my top THREE ways that you can encourage STEM skills at home with little ones:

1. Ample Opportunities to Build and Create

Provide your young children lots of time for free exploration and play! Sometimes its best to allow them explore and build on the natural inquiry they have about the world around them. I’ve found sometimes I have a clear idea of how I want to do an activity with Fitz, but if he takes things in a different direction, that’s okay! I don’t want to stifle his natural questions, ideas, and creativity.

2. Provide a Variety of Materials

Learning how to work with different materials and objects is an important skill. It helps children categorize and label, understand how different objects work, and think critically about how to best meet a goal. For example, which type of blocks make the tallest tower? Which blocks make the strongest bridge? These are foundational skills in understanding the structure and function of objects and materials.

Some of our current favorite blocks are these Magnatiles and these foam blocks!

3. Ask Questions and Encourage Talk

My last tip is just to ask your child questions! Encouraging talking about what they are learning, building, and engaging in helps them process new learning and gain new ideas! Here are some questions I ask Fitz when he’s building something or working on a STEM activity: What are you trying to do, make, or create? What materials will help you? What are different ways you can use the material/object? It really doesn’t take a lot, but you’ll find your young child will love telling you their ideas and plans when playing, building, and designing!

Here are a couple of simple activities to get you started that encourage STEM skills at home: Building Rainbows and Humpty Dumpty Egg Drop. Let me know if you try one of these out using the above tips!