Nov 25th, STEM-Giving Fun!

 It's me again! This time, I'm bringing in some fun resources I've found for doing at home, Thanksgiving themed STEM activities! The best part? Many of these activities have ingredients you can get while doing your own Thanksgiving grocery shopping trip!

I want to shout out "Little Bins for Little Hands" for providing the link to the materials for this Food Themed science project! You can find all activities and instructions at their website by simply following this link:

Thanksgiving Fun!

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STEM-Giving

Bread in a Bag

Bread making is one of the most exciting and visually stimulating activities kids can do; not to mention the end product tastes and smells amazing!

Pick up the simple ingredients of flour, sugar, yeast, salt, water, and oil and you're on your way to exploring chemical reactions! Kids can learn about the importance of following the recipe and get to mix ingredients in a zip lock bag by hand. After mixing, watch the dough triple in size and toss it in the oven for a yummy treat! Nothing beats the smell of fresh baked bread!

Homemade Butter

Waiting for bread to bake takes patience, so why not get your kids excited about whipping up a batch of fresh butter?!

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Fresh Butter!

All you need is heavy whipping cream, a pint mason jar, and arm strength. Fill up the mason jar about 3/4 of the way with cream, screw on the lid, and shake away! During the process, whipping cream will move from the liquid stage to solid stage (Butter!). Take time to explain to kids the different stages of matter (Solid, liquid, and gas). Heavy whipping cream will become whipped cream before butter, great time for a taste check!

It takes about 15 mins of constant, rapid shaking to get butter. Just about enough time for your bread to finish baking!

Cranberry Code

Kids love secret languages, codes, messages, etc... so why not show kids how to use acid/base reactions to make their own thanksgiving notes! Mixing baking soda and water together, let kids use paint brushes to paint notes to each other.

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Cranberry Code

Make your thanksgiving day meal unique by having kids paint the place mats, as a family - write what you are thankful for, make greeting cards for guests, etc... and then have kids show their decoding skills with the cranberry solution.

I guarantee kids will love playing with the magic ink and revealing their messages for years to come!

There are many more activities included on the Little Bins website link above. Check them out and let me know how things turned out in the comments below! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!


I am a STEM/k12 Educator with Colorado State University Extension. I love working with youth and encouraging them to participate in many forms of hand on education! Overall, our goal is to promote positive youth development and encourage youth to pursue higher education after high school.

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