30+ Hands-on STEM Activities for Preschoolers
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Help build your child’s early problem-solving, reasoning, and observation skills with these engaging STEM activities.
When you’re very young, the whole world is new and waiting to be explored, making the preschool years a great time to try STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) activities.
Did You Know? STEM is an interdisciplinary approach to learning that focuses on integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math through hands-on, problem-based learning. It aims to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills in students while preparing them for future careers in STEM fields.
Give your little one lots of opportunities to investigate, examine, and learn about the world around them with these simple and engaging STEM activities for preschoolers.
Easy STEM Activities for Preschoolers
1. Track the Weather
Create a chart to track the weather each day. Is it sunny or cloudy? What was the high temperature and low temperature? How much rain or snow did you get? Talk about patterns over time, and how the changing seasons affect the weather.
Expand Learning: Create a simple rain gauge using an empty glass jar and a ruler. Use a permanent marker to mark lines on the side of the jar at half-inch and inch intervals. Set it outside in an open area, then check and empty it after each rainfall.
2. Categorize and Sort
Note the different properties of items: size, shape, color, etc. Then, sort those items into groups based on their various properties. You can do this STEM activity for preschoolers with toys, snacks, shoes, rocks … anything you like!
Expand Learning: Choose any two items, and try to find one property they have in common. This can be harder than it seems, so encourage your child to think creatively!
3. Use the Five Senses
Talk about each of the five senses (smell, taste, touch, hearing, and vision), and the body parts associated with them. Actively use your senses to explore your environment by asking your child to identify what they can currently smell, hear, see, and so on.
Expand Learning: Experiment with blocking one of the five senses, such as by wearing a blindfold or holding your nose. How does it affect the way you experience the world? What changes do you have to make when you can’t rely on that particular sense?
4. See What Can Sink or Float
Learn about buoyancy with this simple STEM activity that kids love! Fill a large container with water, then drop different items in to see if they sink or float. Try predicting the outcome in advance for each item and keep track of your results.
Expand Learning: As you make your predictions, ask your child why they think an item will sink or float. Sort your items by how they act in water, then see if you can find any common characteristics between those that float and those that sink.
5. Shoot Off a Balloon Rocket
Draw and cut out a simple paper rocket. Then, blow up a balloon and hold it shut (don’t tie it off), and tape the rocket to the balloon. Finally, let the balloon go and watch it fly!
Expand Learning: Ask your child to watch as you let the balloon go, and see if they notice anything about the direction it takes off in. This is a good introduction to the laws of motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. What causes the balloon to fly instead of just falling to the ground?
6. Construct a Simple Catapult
All you need for this STEM activity is a ruler and a small block. Balance the ruler on the block so one end touches the ground, and place a cotton ball on that end. Then, tap sharply on the other end of the ruler, and see the cotton ball soar.
Expand Learning: Experiment with moving the block to different places under the ruler, and note how it affects the flight of the cotton ball. You can also try varying the amount of force you use to launch the catapult.
7. Build With Toothpicks and Marshmallows
This is one of those classic preschool STEM activities that little ones adore. Provide them with mini-marshmallows and toothpicks, then let them build towers, cubes, and other creations.
Expand Learning: Give your child a challenge, such as building the highest possible tower that stands on its own with a set number of toothpicks and marshmallows. Or, try creating as many shapes as possible (triangle, square, etc.), including 3D cubes and boxes for older kids.
8. Experiment With Magnets
At this age, kids don’t necessarily need to understand how magnets work, but they can have a lot of fun exploring what’s attracted to a magnet and what isn’t. Simply use a refrigerator magnet to test which items it can stick to or pick up.
Expand Learning: Keep track of each item’s magnetic properties (or lack thereof), then ask your child if they can find anything those items have in common. Once they think they’ve figured it out, have them test their theory by predicting whether new items will be attracted to their magnet or not.
9. Turn a Hanger into a Balancing Scale
Gather a few supplies: a clothing hanger, two clothespins, and two plastic cups. Use the clothespins to attach one plastic cup to each end of the bottom hanger rail. Then, hang the whole thing from a doorknob, and use it to compare small items to find out which weighs more.
Expand Learning: Challenge your child to fill the two cups with items that bring the hanger perfectly level, demonstrating that these two items weigh the same. They’ll have to use skills like predicting and testing as they perform a basic experiment each time they try weighing new items.
10. Dye Flowers or Lettuce Leaves
Pick or buy white flowers (like daisies or carnations) and place them in cups of water with a few drops of food coloring. In a day or so, the flower petals will have changed color to match the water in the cup! Encourage your child to think about what this tells them about the way plants “drink.”
Expand Learning: What happens if you use colored flowers for this experiment? Can you use blue dye with a yellow flower to get green petals? Give it a try and find out!
11. Mix Paints
Finger painting is one of the great joys of childhood, and it’s also a good chance to work in some STEM learning. Using just three colors (red, yellow, and blue), mix up different combinations to see what new colors you can create.
Expand Learning: To bring another element to this activity, try mixing in white or black paint to make each color lighter or darker. You can even make a DIY color wheel to show all of the various hues and shades you created.
12. Measure Everything
Early measurement activities often use non-standard measurement, rather than a ruler or scale. For example, your child might figure out how many paper clips they need to line up to measure the length of a piece of paper. Or, they could use the length of their index finger to see how tall a bottle is. Be creative!
Expand Learning: If you feel like your child is ready, provide them with a very simple ruler that shows increments of one inch. They can practice taking measurements and recording their results.
13. Create a STEM Bin
Fill a big bin with pieces of cardboard, wood craft sticks, blocks, tape, glue sticks, rubber bands, and other age-appropriate supplies. Then let your child tinker away, designing and building new creations. This kind of unstructured play encourages creative thinking and ingenuity.
Expand Learning: From time to time, you can offer your child a STEM challenge to complete using supplies from their bin. You could ask them to build a new container to hold their favorite snack, construct a garage for their toy cars, or design a marble maze. They’ll practice problem-solving skills and have fun doing it!
Outdoor STEM Activities for Preschoolers
14. Grow Seeds
Here’s another classic preschool STEM activity: watching a seed sprout and grow. The easiest way to do this is by poking a few holes in a clear plastic cup (for drainage) and filling it with potting soil. Then, plant a large seed (beans are ideal) close to the side where it’s visible. Watch the seed crack open and send roots down and the seedling up!
Expand Learning: Plant a family vegetable garden. Work together to prepare the soil, then choose the seeds and plants. Take turns weeding and watering, and enjoy a harvest together after all your efforts.
15. Take a Nature Walk
One important part of STEM subjects is learning to observe details and a nature walk is a terrific time to practice this. Look out for local wildlife, and watch its behavior. Examine flowers up close, and check out a bee gathering pollen. Repeat the walk a few weeks later and note the changes that happened since your last stroll.
Expand Learning: Keep a nature journal together. Draw pictures of what you’ve seen or record your sightings and discoveries. This is a fun, interactive way to encourage observation skills.
16. Do a Nature Scavenger Hunt
Add another STEM activity to your nature walk with a scavenger hunt. Label each well of an old muffin tin with pictures of nature objects, like flowers, acorns, feathers, and pebbles. As you walk, keep an eye out for items to collect to fill the tin, trying to find everything before you head back home again.
Expand Learning: Walking with multiple kids? Try Nature Bingo instead. Label bingo grids with pictures, mixing them up to create different cards. Give each child a card on a clipboard with a pencil, then see who can fill a row and call out “bingo” first.
17. Hang a Bird Feeder
Create a simple bird feeder by smearing peanut butter on a big pinecone and rolling it in sunflower seeds. Use a piece of yarn to hang it in a nearby tree, then watch for feathered visitors. Keep a bird guide for your area nearby, and try to identify all the species that visit.
Expand Learning: Participate in a program like the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count or Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s FeederWatch. Show your child the importance of citizen science by sharing your observations with the wildlife biologists who study and protect birds.
18. Dig in the Dirt
This couldn’t be easier: give your child a small trowel and let them dig away! Examine the dirt itself: is it sandy, rocky, clay-like, or a mix? Then, see what you find as you dig—insects, plant roots, buried rocks, and more.
Expand Learning: If you have the space, bury items for your child to dig up and “discover,” like toy dinosaurs, fake gemstones, or other treasures. Then learn more about archeologists and others who “dig in the dirt” for a living.
19. Blow Bubbles
This beloved childhood activity actually has a lot of STEM learning applications. Preschoolers can experiment with blowing gently or with more force and see how it affects the bubbles. They can also watch the bubbles float away, noticing how the wind catches and carries them. Plus, pay attention to where bubbles land—do they always pop or do they sometimes linger on certain surfaces?
Expand Learning: Make your own bubble wands using pipe cleaners. How do different shapes and sizes affect the bubbles you blow?
20. Pick Up Rocks
Most kids absolutely love to pick up rocks, so turn their hobby into a STEM learning activity. Examine the rocks more closely and look for similarities and differences. Compare rocks from different locations to see how the rocks vary from place to place. Collect your favorites for a display!
Expand Learning: Sort rocks by their various characteristics, such as size, shape, color, and texture. Older preschoolers might even be ready to learn words like igneous and sedimentary.
21. Play With Water
Whether you use a water table or just splash around in the tub with buckets and floating toys, kids can learn a lot by getting a little (or a lot!) wet. Use smaller containers to fill up larger ones, try to dam up flowing water, make and float paper boats … there are so many options!
Expand Learning: Add some ice to your water container and observe what happens. Your child might notice things like the fact that ice floats, the chunks get smaller over time, and the water itself gets colder as the ice disappears. They’ll probably even work out the fact that ice and water are made of the same thing, an early understanding of the states of matter.
22. Make Rainbows
While you’ve got the hose out, make rainbows! Pick a sunny day, then experiment to find the best angles for making rainbows appear in the spray of water. Ask your child if they can figure out the necessary positions of the sun and water to create those colorful arcs.
Expand Learning: Have your child examine pictures of rainbows, and see if they notice anything about the colors (i.e. they always appear in the same order). Learn the names and orders of the colors in the visible light spectrum.
23. Spin Pinwheels
Pick up some inexpensive pinwheel toys, or use sturdy cardstock and a drinking straw to make your own. Take them outside on a windy day and experiment to find the best positions to make them spin. What happens if you turn them upside-down, back-to-front, hold them way up high, or hide them from the wind altogether?
Expand Learning: Make learning about the wind even more exciting by flying a kite! Buy one or make your own, then see what it takes to get yours flying high. There’s a real skill to kite-flying, and the more you know about the science behind it, the better you’ll be.
24. Watch Clouds
Lay on your backs on a warm day and watch the clouds float by. Observe the different shapes and note how they move in the sky. Does it match up with the winds you feel on the ground? What happens when a cloud covers the sun? Do any of the clouds look like they could produce rain? How do you know?
Expand Learning: Use white chalk on blue construction paper to draw pictures of the different types of clouds you see. You can even introduce some terms like cirrus and stratus to describe the various types.
25. Collect Leaves
When you’re taking a nature walk, pick up leaves and examine their size, shape, and color. Try to collect as many different kinds as you can throughout the seasons and compare their appearances in spring, summer, and fall.
Expand Learning: Make a leaf book by gluing or tracing the various leaves into a blank notebook. Use a tree guide to figure out which type of tree each leaf comes from and help your child label each one.
ABCmouse STEM Activities for Preschoolers
26. Make a Rocket Car
Build a self-propelled rocket car using cardboard, plastic bottle caps, skewers, and a balloon for power. Once assembled, inflate the balloon and release the air to watch the car zoom across the floor. Find step-by-step instructions for making a rocket car here.
Expand Learning: Encourages kids to experiment with different designs for better performance and discuss why one design may work better than others.
27. Make a Melting Monster Science Activity
Combine water, cornstarch, and food coloring to create a gooey substance called oobleck. Add googly eyes and craft features to form a spooky “monster.”
Watch as the monster “melts” when left on a smooth surface, demonstrating how oobleck acts as both a solid and a liquid depending on pressure. Find more detailed instruction creating a Melting Monster here.
Expand Learning: Explain how this happens due to the unique behavior of non-Newtonian fluids, or fluids that change their viscosity (thickness) when force is applied to them.
28. Make a Glitter Volcano
Add some sparkle to a classic science experiment by creating a Glitter Volcano. Wrap a small plastic bottle with textured paper to mimic a volcano and prepare a mixture of vinegar, dish soap, glitter, and food coloring. When poured into the bottle with baking soda, it creates a stunning, sparkling eruption. Get step-by-step instruction for creating a Glitter Volcano here.
Expand Learning: Explain that this activity is like a chemistry experiment, as it demonstrates how baking soda and vinegar produce carbon dioxide, creating the bubbly reaction that kids love to watch.
29. Make a DIY Lava Lamp
Craft a mesmerizing lava lamp using a clear jar, water, cooking oil, food coloring, and an effervescent antacid tablet. Watch as the tablet reacts with the water, creating bubbles that rise and fall through the oil, mimicking the signature “lava” effect. Watch a video on creating your own lava lamp here.
Expand Learning: This activity introduces concepts like density (oil and water separation) and chemical reactions, sparking curiosity and delight. Shine a flashlight underneath for added fun!
30. Make Silly Seed Animals
Take the idea of planting seeds one step further and combine creativity and science with this fun activity. Fill a piece of hosiery with grass seeds and soil, tie it into shapes, and decorate it with googly eyes and pom poms to create a “silly seed animal.” Place it in a sunny spot, water it regularly, and watch its “hair” grow over the next week! Learn to make Silly Seed Animals here.
Expand Learning: This activity teaches young children how plants grow. Get kids involved in caring for their sprouting creation, helping them learn that plants need just the right amount of water and light to thrive.
31. Create a Moving Liquid Rainbow
Pour whole milk into a shallow plate and add drops of food coloring. Dip a cotton swab in dish soap and gently touch it to the milk’s surface to create swirling, vibrant patterns. Learn how to make Color in Motion here.
Expand Learning: Explain that before the soap is added, all the little bits of milk are holding onto each other really tightly, letting the food coloring float on top of it. When the dish soap touches the milk, all the bits of milk get “slippery” and break apart, causing the food coloring to scatter. In other words, the dish soap reduces surface tension and reacts with the fat in the milk.
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