Integrate STEM activities into your back-to-school plans by guiding students to create a name badge, cantilever, and school mascot.
Kick Off a New Year With Exciting STEM Challenges!
The time has come to head back into those hallways and meet your new group of students! This year, we want to help you change things up a bit, so we’ve created some exciting new STEM challenges and science projects that are perfect for the first day or week of school.
Forget the usual routine; it’s time to turn the first day of school into a STEM-powered extravaganza! This year we challenge you to try out one of our Back to School STEM challenges as your icebreaker and team-building exercises. These tasks will have your students diving headfirst into collaborative problem-solving, engineering feats, and hands-on experiments, all while forming bonds and getting to know their classmates.
These STEM activities are perfect for grades 4 – 6. They provide opportunities for independent or group STEM work.
3 Exciting Upper-Elementary STEM Challenges to Choose From!
This teaching resource encourages students to use everyday materials that you, as the teacher, can source easily.
Back to School STEM Challenge #1 – Pencil Me In✏️
Your students might need some help remembering their new classmates’ names. This design activity challenges them to create a name badge that doubles as a holder for their most important tool – their pencil!
Back to School STEM Challenge #2 – Walk the Plank☠️
This challenging task is a sure-fire way to get those brains thinking! This is a great way to introduce your students to the idea of a ‘cantilever’. Why not study some famous cantilevers around the world, such as the Balancing Barn in Suffolk, UK, beforehand?
Back to School STEM Challenge #3 – Mascot Madness🦸
This is a team-building STEM challenge extraordinaire! Encourage your students to get to know each other by building a mascot out of pencil case equipment!
We also have a fun pack of Back to School STEM Challenges for younger grades.
Looking for more back-to-school activities? Check out the ones below:
Celebrate the first day of school, get to know your students, and create an amazing bulletin board display with a “We All Fit In” Collaborative Puzzle activity. Celebrate the first day of school, get to know your students, and create an amazing bulletin board display with a Welcome to our “School” Fish Glyph. Engage your students in thought-provoking discussions with this set of 16 back-to-school “Would You Rather” questions.
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We Fit Right In! Back to School All About Me - Bulletin Board Template
teaching resource
Welcome to Our School - About Me Glyph
teaching resource
Would You Rather...? Back to School Edition
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