If you're anything like us, you love a themed activity! We have plenty of exciting and new ways to teach your students about STEM subjects, including botany, physics, and more, all while celebrating the changing seasons. So without further ado, here are 50 fall STEM activities for kids.
Learn about dehydration by baking apple chips.
Pick up leaves and match them to their original trees for a quick botany lesson.
Press the leaves you found and label their parts.
Do leaf rubbings and compare the different prints.
Collect acorns and dissect them to learn about seeds.
Get dry ice for some spooky fog while you learn about the different states of matter.
Make a Jack-o'-lantern and have your students draw it daily to learn about decay.
Use tissue paper, glue, and cling wrap to make stained glass window hangings and learn all about light refraction and how we see colors.
Teach kids about kinetic energy by jumping into leaf piles and seeing how the leaves break their fall.
Fill a thermos with hot cocoa, and then put hot cocoa in a plastic cup. Have kids check the drink's temperature later to learn about insulation and temperature loss.
Go on a nature walk and write down the signs of the changing season (leaves changing, squirrels harvesting nuts, etc.).
Go on a stargazing trip with your family. Be sure to bring a constellation guide with you!
Take rubbings of different tree trunks and compare the textures of the other parks.
Make a field guide for your neighborhood, complete with plants, animals, and landmarks.
Hold an apple taste test, complete with scoring sheets. Have each kid write down each apple's pros and cons, then choose a favorite flavor.
Collect pine cones, then dissect them to find out how coniferous trees store their seeds.
Teach the difference between evergreen and deciduous trees, and go on a leaf-watching tour of your neighborhood.
Take a walk in the park and identify different birds.
Using colored pencils or markers, make a chart and track how the weather changes over the next couple of weeks. This works well if you make a chart for each season to watch the seasons change.
Dip your candles, then mark them off to measure the time they burn.
Find your favorite slime recipe and make fall-themed slime.
Have your kids go on a spider web hunt. Have them draw their spider web while you teach them all about arachnids and how they catch their prey.
Teach your kids about seasonal migration, then go on a walk and see if you can spot any migrating animals.
Visit your local zoo and learn about hibernation.
Talk about how animals change their colorations to camouflage themselves in the fall and have students make their camouflage.
Learn about momentum and engineering by making a simple leaf catapult with a large rock to act as the fulcrum, a board, and some leaves.
Go on a nature scavenger hunt.
Collect different fun natural items on your walk, then use them to create miniature buildings at home.
Use fallen leaves and colorful paints to create a leaf counting game for younger students.
Let older kids help make fall recipes to help them learn about fractions and measurements (with adult supervision, of course!).
Go for a bike ride and teach your children how the gear and chain on their bikes propel them forward.
Make bird feeders by covering pinecones with peanut butter and seeds. Then, write down what birds visit your feeder.
Help kids learn about movie foley work using a recording device and household objects to make spooky sounds. You can even help them make a spooky recording for Halloween.
Go apple picking and encourage students to ask how apples are grown.
Teach your students navigation skills at a local corn maze.
Help your students learn about estimation using pumpkins. Have them estimate the weight of various pumpkins and compare their estimates to the results.
Build a backyard leaf fort.
Visit a botanical garden. You can have older students draw the different fall plants and seed pods they find on their trip.
Plant the pumpkin seeds from your Jack-o'lantern inside and have your students draw each stage of growth.
Line up candy buckets for a Jack-o'-lantern toss using ping-pong balls. This is a great way to teach students about angles.
Create an outdoor obstacle course to help students learn creative problem-solving and motor skills.
Make a fall-themed sensory table with leaves, pinecones, and acorns.
Carefully help students make apple stamps by cutting apples in half and pressing them into non-toxic paint. This is a great way to teach students the parts of an apple.
Dye dried corn kernels in different colors and have your students sort them into piles. You can even turn this into a counting activity by asking them to count each color.
Dissolve salt in hot water, then leave leaves or other fall objects in the water to grow salt crystals. This is a great way to learn about how crystals form.
Challenge your students to find leaves in different stages of changing color, and teach them about how leaves change colors.
For very young children, provide a mixed bag of acorns, pinecones, and other seeds, and have them sort them by type and size. This also works with different colors of leaves.
Have your students construct towers out of different materials and see how many apples they can balance on top.
Challenge your students to craft egg-protecting devices from everyday household items, then do an egg drop. Be sure to write down your results!
Use cardboard tubes to build acorn slides.
If you try any of these out, tag us on Instagram! We love seeing all of your STEM activities!
GIGIL STEM Subscription Boxes bring STEM Education to your doorstep, with 5 activities each month and all the supplies you need to complete them! Just open up your STEM Kit and go (easy)! We have been tested and awarded by Mom's Choice Awards, Parents' Picks, and The National Parenting Center. Along with our subscriptions, we are approved by charter schools and offer wholesale rates for groups or classrooms.