May STEM Activities for Elementary Students

Summer is in sight! But - there’s still plenty of time left for some May STEM activities. With the warmer weather and the school year ending close in sight, STEM activities make a great classroom activity to keep students engaged and learning all the way up to summer break.

May 4 - National Star Wars Day / May the 4th be with you

Droids are all over the Star Wars galaxy but these are really just another word for robots! These robots are programmed to do all sorts of things from flying ships to being servants to everything in between. In Kodable, Carebots are similar to droids because they are robots that follow specific commands to accomplish tasks. These tasks include feeding and cleaning Kodable puppies.

Teach your students the basics of functions and conditional statements to help them train their Carebots to take care of puppies in our online Robots and Puppies activity. After this STEM activity you can talk about popular Star Wars droids and have students explain what conditions they use for their behavior.

May 5 - National Space Day

Make your own spaceship

How do we explore space? With spaceships of course! Have students use their creativity and legos to build their own spaceship. Bonus points for incorporating a writing into this STEM activity by having students write a short story on where their spaceship is taking them.

Materials:

• Legos
• Writing materials

Instructions:

• Use legos to build a spaceship
• Write a short story about where you want to explore with your spaceship

May 16 - International Day of Light

Build a Prism

In this STEM activity, your students will create a water prism using a clear container and water. They’ll learn about the properties of light and how it bends and refracts as it passes through different mediums. 

Materials:

• Clear glass or plastic container (such as a jar or vase)
• Water
• White paper or cardstock
• Flashlight

Instructions:

1. Fill the clear container with water.
2. Place the container on top of a white piece of paper or cardstock.
3. Use the flashlight to shine a beam of light onto the side of the container.
4. Observe how the light bends as it passes through the water, creating a rainbow of colors on the white paper.
5. To enhance the colors, place a mirror underneath the container and shine the flashlight through the water and onto the mirror.
6. Move the flashlight around and observe how the colors change.
7. Try adding different objects to the water, such as food coloring or glitter, and observe how it affects the colors.
8. Discuss with the students the concepts of refraction and dispersion of light that they observed during the activity.

May 18 - International Museum Day

Museum Bingo

Help bring world history right to your classroom with online museum tours to celebrate International Museum Day. You can pick activities for students to find and explore using a choice board or you can use free tools from Canva to create a custom bingo card for individual students or groups to explore together.

Here are some online museums you can use to include in your STEM activity:

• Natural History Museum
•  NASA Research Center
• The Natural History Museum (London) 
• Museum of Natural Sciences (Belgium)

May 20 - World Metrology Day

Measuring the weather 

April showers bring May flowers and world metrology day is a great day to combine the upcoming summer weather with teaching students how to measure. In this STEM activity you can use a thermometer, rain gauge, and barometer to measure the weather over the course of a week to talk about how measurements can change from day-to-day.

Materials:

• Weather chart
• Markers or stickers
• Thermometer
• Barometer
• Rain gauge

Instructions:

1. Have the students create a weather chart with spaces for the date, temperature, precipitation, and air pressure.
2. Place the thermometer, barometer, and rain gauge outside in a safe location.
3. Record the data from each instrument on the weather chart.
4. Have the students look for patterns in the data and make predictions about future weather patterns.

STEM Activities make for great classroom activities year-round. If you’re interested in taking your classroom STEM activities to the next level, consider signing up for a free Kodable account. With Kodable you can introduce students to the basics of computer programming in a fun and engaging way with self-paced learning and unlimited creative activities. Try it out today!