STEAM Summer: Online Camps and DIY Activities for Summer Vacation

School is out! Do you have kids at home this summer? Maybe you will be teaching at a STEAM summer camp. I know that you will be eager for activities that minimize screen time and maximize creative thinking and some ingenuity. Even better if those activities are affordable, planned out and don't need a bunch of crazy materials. Good news, we have got you covered with tons of STEAM activities, online STEAM and science camps, and even a STEAM inspired summer survival freebie! 

Get ready for a fun and engaging summer of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math!

This post contains affiliate links meaning I receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you. See disclosures for more information.

Online STEAM Camps

I'm over the moon excited to be offering 2 online STEAM and science summer camps on Outschool this summer. They are designed to teach kids fun activities that they can do independently outside of brief, live online sessions. You can see all of my Outschool science and STEAM class listings in addition to coupon codes here.

Nature Art, Science and Engineering

In Nature Art Camp: Art, Science, and Engineering Fun! kids aged 8-12 will will tap into their love of nature and inner artist. In this three-day camp, students will be inspired to engineer and build rock sculptures, experiment to make their own nature watercolors and natural paintbrushes, explore well-known nature artists and create their own nature journals. 

New students can try any course or camp on Outschool, not only mine, for $20 off by using my referral code: MSSARAH2020.

Any student can save $10 on either of my camps with coupon code SARAHCAMP10 until Aug 31, 2024. Get started here and enter the coupon code at checkout.

Spy Science for Kids!

In Spies and CSI's in Training: Science Camp kids aged 7-11 will discover 2 different kid-safe techniques for making and revealing invisible secret messages, as well as the science behind them. They will learn methods for creating codes and ciphers. Learners will find out all about fingerprints and learn an easy way to take a fingerprint (without ink!) to create their own fingerprint database. 

New students can try any course or camp on Outschool, not only mine, for $20 off by using my referral code: MSSARAH2020

Any student can save $10 on either of my camps with coupon code SARAHCAMP10 until Aug 31, 2024. Get started here and enter the coupon code at checkout.

Fun STEAM Activities for Summer

Summer is the perfect time to engage your kids, campers or students in some Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. These STEM and STEAM activities will get them thinking, engage them for extended periods of time and can be extended beyond the original activity. Bonus, a lot of the materials can be found around the house!

Check out these favorites:

• Design, engineer, build and cook in your own solar oven!
• Build your own"cold-blooded" creatures with temperature sensitive dough
• Monsters and Mold food science experiment
• Make a light-up firefly life-cycle diagram with paper circuitry
• Create some sculptures out of nature with these engineering challenges
• Design and build a seed model- more nature inspired engineering!
• Create your own insect investigation
• Build your own zoetrope and create some animation
• Make your own light-up board game

The Ultimate STEAM Summer Survival Guide Freebie

Check out this freebie from Green Kid Crafts: The Ultimate STEAM Summer Survival Guide. There are some super ideas for engaging summer fun in this 11-page guide. 

If you are looking for fun STEAM activities sent right to your mailbox, check out a subscription to Green Kid Crafts this summer. 

The first box of the summer is an awesome dive into electricity: What is electricity? What's a circuit? Ohm’s Law? Kids will find the answers as they build an electric propeller car, learn how motors work, engineer their own fiber optic lights, connect circuits and build their own food powered clock! Use code SUMMER15 at checkout to get 15% off any monthly plan.

DIY STEAM Camp Ideas for Home or Traditional Camp 

If you want to create your own STEAM camp experience at home, or try some new ideas for a camp you are working with this summer, look no further. 

We are big fans of the STEAM Kids books, and love this Camp STEAM digital resource for 5 days of STEAM activities for kids ages 4-10. It's all planned out for you, easy peasy!

These are also great free resources for summer STEM and STEAM activities! 

Check out a great collection of summer STEM activities here. 

Fun ideas for DIY STEM at this link. 

Another plan for STEAM summer camp.

STEM activities from Backyard Summer Camp.

STEM activities for summer camps.

Make the Earth Beautiful with Homemade Seed Paper

Happy Earth Day! Although I do truly believe that we should be practicing Earth friendly behavior each and every day, it is nice to do something special once a year to celebrate our home planet.

This DIY recycled seed paper project combines two Earth friendly ideas: recycling and growing plants! With this tutorial you will make recycled paper infused with flower seeds. This seed paper can be "planted" right in the garden and will sprout. The paper can be also cut into fun shapes and given as gifts.

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I earn a small commission from purchases made from these links at no additional cost to you. Please see disclosures for details. 

©SBF

 

Make the Earth Beautiful like Miss Rumphius!

Many of you are probably familiar with the classic picture book Miss Rumphius by Babara Cooney. For those of you who are not, it tells the sweet tale of an adventurous woman who had three missions in life: to go to faraway places, grow old by the sea and, most importantly, make the world more beautiful.
 

Miss Rumphius accomplishes all that she sets out to do and her greatest mission is beautifying the world by spreading lupine seeds. If only each of us did one small thing to make the Earth more beautiful, can you imagine what the planet would be like?

This story is a great launching point for all sorts of Earth Day projects including making your own seed paper. This paper, with seeds woven into it, can be planted in pots or gardens and makes a lovely gift. (Mother's Day is just around the corner folks!)

Make Recycled Seed Paper

If you have made recycled paper with your children or students you will find that the process is practically identical. 

Here is what you will need: 

• Shredded paper, or paper torn into small pieces
• A basin or bucket
• Water
• A blender
• Seeds, flowers are nice. Marigold seeds are nice and flat for this paper.
• Old window screens, or DIY screens made from screening and wooden photo frames.

First you'll need to shred some paper. Kids love doing this by hand or you can use paper from an electric shredder. This is a great way to recycle that junk mail!

Shred some paper

Once the paper is shredded, soak it in water for a while, an hour will do, but if you have the luxury of leaving it overnight it will become quite soft. Students can then tear and mush the paper into smaller pieces.

Soak the paper

Put some of the saturated paper in the blender with water to cover. Doing a cup at a time on the "chop" setting does a nice job of making the slurry, or "paper milkshake" that you'll need.

Make the paper slurry

Time to mix in the seeds. I have chosen to use marigold seeds because they are nice and flat and I have a lot of them that I saved from flowers last summer.

Marigold seeds

You can use just about any type of small flat seed in your paper. Mixing and matching can be a nice surprise once the paper is planted. Mix the seeds into the slurry, making sure you can see them throughout the mush. Now to make the paper!

Mix in the seeds

You can go about the next step in one of several ways depending on the space you are working in. The paper slurry needs to be spread out flat on a screen. You can use an old window screen, or you can make your own screens by stapling screening onto picture frames like we did. Paper making kits like this one, that include similar screens are also available for purchase.

We chose to fill the screens outside as it was nice and sunny. We scooped the slurry onto the screen and flatten it as we went. This allowed the excess water to run off quite easily without making a mess inside. The indoor alternative is to squeeze the water out of the slurry with your hands over a sink or container and then pat it down flat on the screening. As long as you have basins or a sink and some newspaper it really is not a huge mess indoors either. The paper needs to be pushed down flat and thin in the screen. 

Cover with a thin layer of the recycled paper mixture

The seeds are mixed throughout

A chipmunk came to check out our paper while it was on the deck and left some muddy tracks!

Once the paper is in the screen you'll have to wait a day or two for it to dry thoroughly. Once it is dry you can pull it off the screen and cut into whatever shape you'd like.

The finished product

Add a cute tag and you've got a lovely Earth Day, Mother's Day, or Spring gift. The papers can be planted in the ground, planters or pots. Place them just under the soil, keep moist and you are one step closer to making the world a more beautiful place!!

A nice gift!

 

Saturday Science Experiment: Spies and CSIs

     

Looking for a weekend project? Here are three activities that little spies and detectives can do with regular household items. Write secret messages and reveal them easily- no lemon juice or open flames! Then create a fingerprint database of the members of your household with very little mess.

This post contains affiliate links, please see disclosures for more information. 

Spy project #1: Invisible messages with wax and watercolors

Supplies: scrap paper, white crayons, watercolors, paintbrush, an optional smock

Procedure: On a piece of paper, draw a secret message or picture with the white crayon. To reveal the message, paint over it with watercolor paint. Voila! 

The science: The wax from the crayon creates a barrier that keeps the paint from adhering to that part of the paper. In art this is a method called wax resist. You may have used this technique to create designs on dyed Easter eggs. 

© SBF

Spy project #2: Invisible ink with baking soda and juice

Supplies: scrap paper, baking soda, water, dark colored juice (we used grape), paintbrush, small sponge or cotton swabs, an optional smock

Procedure: Mix up the water and baking soda in a 1:1 ratio. Mine was 2 Tbl water and 2 Tbl baking soda. Mix well, then using a paintbrush, paint your secret message on a paper. Let the paper dry completely. To reveal the secret message, dip a cotton swap or a sponge in the dark colored juice (we used grape, but cranberry would also be a good option) then gently "paint" a generous amount onto your message. It will reappear! Note, this is one of those "self-destructing" messages, once it dries, your message won't be very clear anymore.

The science: There are pigments in the juice called anthocyanins. These give the juice its color and react with the baking soda. Anthocyanins work as a pH indicator, just like a piece of litmus or pH paper. pH is the scale of acids and bases. Since baking soda is a base, the pigments react and change color, hence your message is revealed! A similar pH experiment can be found in my post: "Saturday Science Experiment: Science with Christmas Leftovers" 

©SBF

Crime Scene Investigator Project: Fingerprint database

Supplies: pencil, pencil sharpener, scrap paper, scotch tape, your fingers

©SBF

Procedure: Using a freshly sharpened pencil, color a dark splotch on a piece of scrap paper. Rub your finger on the pencil splotch. Using a piece of tape, "lift" the print off of your finger. Place it on your database sheet. You can create a fingerprint database for the whole household!

The science: As we all know, everyone's fingerprint patterns are different. The skin on the fingertips is ridged, which creates a specific pattern that can be left behind on certain surfaces. There are three main types of fingerprint patterns- loops, whorls and arches. Once you have created your database, you can compare the prints for these patterns. Learn more about these patterns in depth here.

©SBF

Did you try any of these activities? Share your experience by commenting below, or e-mailing me at shareitscience@gmail.com

Are you looking for other easy at-home science projects? Check out my "Saturday Science Experiment" page. You'll also find some great quick science experiments for kids here. Happy Experimenting!