STEM Resources

Did you know that a tiny computer the size of a credit card can power robots, video games, and even weather stations? This tiny computer is known as raspberry pi, and people are using it in all kinds of creative ways. Read all about the raspberry pi and the ways people use it to create, learn and play.

As part of the Searchlight Books collection, this series explores the latest and greatest in the world of technology. Fascinating text, vivid photos, and real-world examples bring these amazing breakthroughs to life!

• Board game inspired by Learning Resources' Code & Go Robot Mouse teaches kids coding basics
• Two to four players draw coding cards and “compute” their mice towards cheese wedges scattered across the board
• Players must use critical thinking skills to navigate their mice away from barriers and toward warp tunnels
• Board game teaches coding skills through tactile play without the need for extra screen time or app

• Learning Style: Visual, Tactile
• Skill Development: Problem solving, Following directions, Fine motor skills, Eye-hand coordination, Sequential thought, Critical thinking, Spatial relationships, Creativity

• 104 pieces including 10 double-sided Challenge cards, activity guide with reproducibles

How about making a car that runs on air!

Introduce your child to the power of jet propulsion and thrust with Smartivity Super Duper Propulsion Car S.T.E.M. Educational D.I.Y. Toy Kit. A redesign of our most popular activity project in the 6+ age-group, the Super Duper Propulsion car now comes with extendible tracks and additional learnings about friction and gradients.

Once assembled, children can lay out the tracks they have build and change the length of the track as they please. The tracks have a flat element and an adjustable gradient/slope element. Using the breakers on the flat tracks, children learn the concept of friction and braking. While by changing the notches of the adjustable gradient children understand the variation in power required to climb an incline.

This exploratory and playful learning activity is bound to keep your child engaged for a long time!

We have mashed-up a marble run and a pool table to design the Smartivity Roller Coaster Marble Slide S.T.E.M. Educational D.I.Y. Toy kit. This project is based on the fundamentals of gravity, centrifugal force and banking. The kit contains all the elements needed to assemble the Roller Coaster Marble Slide.

A mix of slider game and pool table, this project is loads of fun to build and play. Once built, a kid can raise marbles along the wheel, and release them. As the marble slides down the track, they can aim the marble with the help of levers on the two sides. On the marble-pool part of the game, kids can place marbles, in such a way that the striker marble coming from the slide track hits them and the strike sends them in the corner or side pockets

Help your children understand the basics of hydraulic mechanisms with this amazing S.T.E.M. Learning D.I.Y. project!

Hydraulic Machines use the power of water pressure to carry out specified tasks. From cranes to braking mechanisms, hydraulic power finds widespread use in daily life.

One of the coolest Smartivity STEM Learning Educational D.I.Y. Toy Kits, the Smartivity Pump It Move It Hydraulic Crane introduces children to the fundamentals of hydraulic machines in the most playful and engagement filled manner.

The kit contains all the elements essential to build a fully-functional hydraulic crane, richly-illustrated and easy-to-understand step-by-step Instruction booklet and tools to embellish the project once built.

Once assembled, children can use their Hydraulic Cranes to life objects and move them around. The project assembly provides at least an hour-long engagement and the game-play ensures that children proudly continue to play with the project even after.

Science, technology, engineering, art, and math work together to make learning fun in these STEAM lessons!

Perfect for Makerspace!

This third grade teacher resource book includes:

• A year's worth of teacher lesson plans
• STEAM design challenges that turn elementary students into inventors
• Easy-to-follow lesson format (with standards identified for each lesson)
• Classroom-tested lessons

The STEAM Design Challenges in this book follow engineering practices to teach students in Grade 3 to solve a problem by designing, creating, and justifying their designs. They also allow art to support and enhance the learning of science and math while the engineering process is followed.

These engaging STEAM lessons:

• Integrate the Next Generation Science Standards and national standards from other disciplines
• Enhance learning across various disciplines
• Facilitate students in collaborating to solve real-world scenarios
• Promote critical thinking, analytical thinking, and reflective thinking
• Incorporate the Five Es Instructional Model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate)
• Are classroom tested

Engineering Design Process
The lessons in this book are intended to support the engineering design process in which teachers become a facilitator by encouraging and guiding students to work as a team to find a creative solution to a real-world problem without providing step-by-step instructions. Students are inspired to act as scientists and engineers through the use of sketches, diagrams, mathematical relationships, and literacy connections. By creating their very own models and products based on background information from their studies, students are immediately engaged through a meaningful, rewarding lesson.

More about the lessons
Each lesson begins by presenting students with a design challenge scenario in order to immediately excite students with a real-world situation that they are on a mission to solve. Students are then given a dilemma, mission, and blueprint design sheet and are asked to collaborate with team members to create several prototypes. Students present their prototypes to their teacher, construct their design, test their design, engage in a class discussion about their design, and then modify their design. Finally, teams create a justification piece in order to sell their new prototype (ex. persuasive letter, video, advertisement etc.).

About the Authors
The Steam Dreamers, a group of four classroom teachers, desired to create more interactive learning environments and science classrooms through student-centered problem-solving lessons. They created this collection of cross-curricular design challenge lessons to provide teachers and students with real-world scenarios that are driven by core learning standards and enriched through the inclusion of literacy and the arts.