Babipur STEM – Seasons

 #babipurSTEM

Happy new year Babipurians, the STEM challenge is back and we’ve got a great theme to kick off 2019; the Seasons!

We know lots of you are already looking forward to Spring, hunting down snowdrops and spying brave little green shoots peeping up from the cold earth. However, Winter is arguably just getting started and some of us are sat here patiently just eagerly awaiting snow. We thought we could all have some fun exploring all things seasonal with your little and not so little ones.

STEMspiration

We are shamelessly encouraging you all to join in with the current #babipurchallenge and get creative with some beautiful ‘invitation to play’ set ups for this one. The changing seasons offer such a good visual for children. We used some drift wood to add to our Winter Grapat Set to explore the colours of the current season. A perfect activity for toddlers and great for some child led play.

Look out for a tuff tray inspired from the Alphabet Seasons Puzzle coming soon.

For smaller children a good idea is a messy play session with the non toxic washable Okonorm paints. You could use different colours to represent each season and paint 4 different sections, once dry you could help draw a tree in the middle.  You could also combine it with a story sack too, which would make it more interactive for pre schoolers.

Bringing Winter Indoors

STEM activities are great for inquisitive older kids too. We have been talking about climate change and how the extreme weathers we get as a result of the different seasons have different effects all over the world. We wanted to try something a little wintry and as we’ve not had any snow yet, we thought we’d have a go at bringing some frost into the kitchen!

We did a super simple science experiment using the Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel cups. All you need is ice, salt, water and a metal container. You could raid your recycling bin and use a tin can instead of the Klean Kanteen cups.

First of all we crushed the ice with a rolling pin. Lots of bashing and noise ensued and we filled the cups with different amounts of ice to see what would happen. We then poured a good load of salt into each cup and then added enough water to cover everything. A quick stir and we sat back and waited.

This is a brilliant visual for kids as salt lowers the melting temperature of the ice so after a few minutes we got a lovely frost effect on the outside of the cups. The longer we waited the more ice formed.

This brought on lots of questions so we tried it again with different quantities of ice, water and salt to see which created the best ‘frosty’ cup! The older kids quickly applied this new knowledge and compared it to gritters using salt to spread on the roads before a frost, which was fantastic. Shortly after the experiment was then abandoned as the toddler tried to drink the slushy mixture. So we swapped ice experiments for hot chocolate to discover the melting point of marshmallows!

Autumn Mandalas

We’re also hoping to see some beautiful mandalas. Don’t forget there is also a fortnightly #babipurmandala challenge to be in with the chance of winning a £10 Babipur voucher! Mandalas are great for teaching little ones mindfulness from an early age. We had fun making this one with leaves from the garden and one of the gorgeous Ambrosius Fairies. The fairies are lovely and tactile to bring out for supervised play. They also make the perfect focal point for a mandala.

How do you enter?

All you have to do is post a picture or video on your public Instagram account or in the Babipur Hangout Group on Facebook showing your little ones making learning fun with some Seasonal STEM activities or set ups. Use the tag #babipurSTEM so we can find your entries and Instagram don’t forget to tag @babipur too!

Multiple entries are always encouraged and we’ll post some more STEMspiration for you over the fortnight. The challenge will run for 2 weeks and entries will count from today up to Wednesday 6^th February 2019 at 11am. Both the winner and the next challenge will be announced later that day.

What’s the prize?

This fortnight we’ve chosen the fabulous PlanToys Weather Dress-Up puzzle. This is a lovely way to illustrate the seasons and teach little ones which clothing choices are appropriate for different times of the year. The underside of the puzzle is great for doing crayon rubbings too.

We can’t wait to see your entries and we love looking at how you make learning fun with Babipur!

#lovebabipur