girl playing with primary science lab set

What is STEM?

Learning Resources Posted On Mar 18, 2021 | Seasonal Fun

Emma Vanstone is a busy mum to four children and is passionate about science education. Her website Science Sparks, is packed with hundreds of fun science experiments and activities that make science for kids easy, fun, and accessible to families and teachers.

Emma is also the author of several books that are packed with experiments and activities to encourage a love of science in your child. In this guest blog post, Emma looks at what is STEM learning and STEM at home.

Check out other STEM related content:

What is STEM?

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. These four areas of learning are deeply intertwined and form part of every aspect of our lives. You might also have heard STEAM mentioned where the A stands for Art.

At Science Sparks, we embrace every aspect of STEM and STEAM. Combining STEM with art based learning methods adds to the creative aspect which is so important when trying to engage young children at home or school.

Why is STEM important?

Exposure to STEM subjects helps children to develop critical thinking, reasoning, and investigative skills, whilst encouraging innovation and creativity. By stimulating a child’s innate curiosity about the world and allowing them to explore and ask questions from an early age, we can help develop a long lasting passion for science and discovery.

STEM at Home

Engaging children in STEM based activities at home is a great way to nurture curious little minds. It's the perfect environment for exposure to open ended tasks to develop problem solving skills. STEM activities don’t need to be complicated or use special equipment. There are many simple STEM learning activities that require almost no preparation.

For young children, experiment with sinking and floating objects or drawing on mirrors. Why not build a bridge, roll cars on different surfaces, or spend time in the kitchen experimenting with baking? Let children explore and, questions and find solutions. Try setting up free play activities such as rolling marbles down a homemade ramp. Add a tape measure to encourage the recording of data and more targeted exploration!

It's never too early for a child to start their STEM education. My advice would be to start simple and let your child lead the activity. l usually find that answering one question leads to another and we then think about practical ways to investigate together. Don’t worry if you don’t know the answer to every question as no one person knows everything. Just taking the time to find out together is all that matters.

The garden is also a great, easy environment for exploration. Try hunting for bugs, talking about the different features of each and why they are useful. Even grow sunflowers or beans, count leaves, look for patterns and shapes and dig in soil.

STEM learning in school

School is a great environment for cross-contextual learning. For example, children could dissect a flower and count the petals, fill beakers and jugs to practice number recognition or look for natural shapes outdoors. Recording experimental data is number writing practice without focusing on the writing aspect. An engaging science experiment can be a fantastic way to stimulate a piece of writing too.

Science doesn’t have to sit on its own separately from everything else. It can be used to inspire Maths and Literacy activities, making the learning relevant to real life situations which helps keep a high level of engagement.

School is also perfect for working together to solve problems, sharing, and testing ideas, presenting the results as a team and children learning from each other.

Want to get your little ones involved in some STEM learning activities? Check out these 5 STEM activities to try at home! You can also visit our free activity sheets page to discover free STEM worksheets, helping your child experiment and explore.

A note from me: As a parent who does a lot of science activities at home, I’ve found them a wonderful way to spend quality time with my children. It’s not unusual for them to come up with a better solution to a problem than me. If you haven’t tried science at home, do it, you might be surprised how much fun it can be.

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Learning Resources | Posted on Jun 27, 2016

What’s Hot? STEM Robot Mouse

This month you have loved our award-winning STEM Robot Mouse Activity Set, the low cost solution to coding in primary classrooms! This must-have set provides an introduction to the concepts of coding and STEM learning. We are surrounded by technology like never before including video games, smart phones and tablets. They are all forms of communication that impact our lives every single day and what they have in common is that they all involve coding! This set provides early learners a fun, real-world application of these essential 21^stcentury skills. Children can programme the sequence of steps, and then watch the mouse race to find the cheese!

What skills does the set promote?

Problem solving
Self-correcting errors
Critical thinking
Analytical thinking
Understanding cause and effect
Working collaboratively with others
Discussion and communication skills
Calculating distance
Spatial concepts

Perfect for individual or group play, children can create their own maze board using 16 interlocking tiles and then add obstacles such as walls and tunnel pieces. The block of cheese can be placed anywhere on the board, with the challenge of programming the mouse to find it! The mouse has two speeds to enable tabletop and floor play.

Before programming the mouse, children can map out his journey using colourful coding cards provided. They are colour co-ordinated to match the buttons on the mouse featuring forward, reverse, left and right commands. They also feature an action card, which programmes the mouse to perform one of three random acts:

Move forward and back
Loud â€œSQUEAAKKâ€
CHIRP-CHIRP-CHIRP (and light-up eyes!)

The Robot Mouse has won the 2016 Education Resources Award for Best Primary Curriculum Resource (including ICT). The awards honour the quality and diversity of products, schools and the most dedicated members of the education sector. In their eighteenth successful year, the awards are organised by BESA, the trade association representing educational suppliers in the UK sector, and Brilliant Marketing Solutions. The judges, an independent panel of experienced educational professionals, most of whom are classroom teachers said â€œthe STEM Robot Mouse Activity Set would encourage children to build hands-on coding skills in a fun and enjoyable way. It was very easy to construct and represented excellent value for money!â€

Testimonials

Mrs Chimes, Class Teacher at South Wootton Infant School, said â€œthis product is absolutely fantastic for the new Key Stage 1 ICT curriculum and requirements for children to create a series of instructions and plan a journey for a programmable toy. The children could use the product without adult support and really enjoyed itâ€. Emma Vanstone, blogger at Science Sparks, trialled the mouse with her coding club and said â€œColby the Robot Mouse is a fantastic, hands on and visually appealing way to introduce coding to kids as well as helping to develop critical, logical and analytical thinking, spatial skills, teamwork and lots more. Itâ€™s been a big hit, both in my house and in a coding club I have been running at a local schoolâ€. Read her full review here.

Learning Resources | Posted on May 17, 2016

Our STEM in Action range has been recognised as ‘Best Product Innovation’ at the Findel Supplier Awards!

Pictured: Louise Benstead (right), Learning ResourcesÂ®, accepting the award from Chris Mahady (left), MD of Findel. Learning Resourcesâ€™ pioneering work in developing hands-on STEM resources, has been recognised for the second time this year with a Findel â€˜Best Product Innovationâ€™ Award!Launched in January, the range comprises of six teacher-friendly kits meeting the STEM needs of primary classrooms. STEM is the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, and defines an approach to learning that asks children to solve real-world problems through enquiry based processes.Each Key Stage 1 STEM in Action kit includes:

Pre-printed worksheets and homework activities
The materials needed for up to 30 students
Double-sided teacher-led activity cards
â€˜Quick startâ€™ preparation cards with helpful hints
A colourful story poster

Held at the Manchester United Football Conference Centre, eight awards were presented on the night, each recognising exceptional UK suppliers. Learning ResourcesÂ® were commended for bringing a range to the UK education market ahead of the field, working closely with Findel in a highly valued partnership.Darren Baxendale, Purchasing Manager at Findel Education said: â€œFindel acknowledged the STEM in Action range from Learning Resources in this award as it was everything we were looking for in a supplier. The partnership and product innovation displayed in the STEM in Action range is a perfect fit for Findelâ€™s customers, and the close working relationship Learning Resources has with Findel is of great benefit to both parties.â€Hannah Searle, STEM in Action Manager, said:

â€œOur exciting STEM in Action range of comprehensive hands-on kits for primary school children provide Key Stage 1 and 2 teachers with digestible and intuitive STEM projects. Each ready-to-use kit will save teachers up to 12 hours in preparation and planning, by providing teachers with everything they need right out of the box including: lesson plans, activity sheets, homework ideas and assessment tools. Primary teachers will not only save valuable time, but will see their confidence grow and the studentâ€™s attainment levels increase in the ever important area of STEM learning. Working in close partnership, Learning Resources and Findel Education have mutually benefitted from each otherâ€™s product development experience, distribution channels and sales & marketing expertise, to be the first to bring such an innovative range to market.â€

Find out more about the STEM in Action range and how it can help in your classroom.

Learning Resources | Posted on Mar 22, 2016

Learning Resources has won an Education Resources Award!

Learning Resources was presented with an Education Resources Award in the â€˜Primary Resource or Equipment â€“ Curriculum learning resources including ICTâ€™ category for its STEM Robot Mouse Activity Set. Held on the 18th of March, the awards honour the quality and diversity of products, schools and the most dedicated members of the education sector. In their eighteenth successful year, the awards are organised by BESA, the trade association representing educational suppliers in the UK sector, and Brilliant Marketing Solutions.

New for 2016, The STEM Robot Mouse Activity Set engages primary children as they build hands-on coding skills. Children create their very own maze using base tiles, tunnel pieces and walls and then programme Colby the Robot Mouse to find the cheese. Easy-to-use, Colby lights-up, makes sounds and features two speeds with colourful buttons that match coding cards for simple programming and sequencing.The judges, an independent panel of experienced educational professionals, most of whom are classroom teachers said, â€œthe STEM Robot Mouse Activity Set would encourage children to build hands-on coding skills in a fun and enjoyable way. It was very easy to construct and represented excellent value for money!â€Caroline Wright, director at BESA, comments: â€œWhat makes these awards different is that they focus on the resources, services and people that really make an impact on learning and the day-to-day work of the teachers in the classroom. The UK education sector is currently in the unprecedented position of offering ever improving standards of excellence. Thousands of educators from across the world visit the UK each year to review and buy products from our suppliers because of the quality offered. We would like to congratulate Learning Resources for its outstanding resource.â€

Elements of STEM learning are highlighted within the purpose of study across the Science, Mathematics and Technology curriculum for Key Stages 1 & 2 in UK schools. The National Stem Centre has stated that the â€˜government has long identifiedÂ STEM educationÂ as a major priority at both school and HE levelâ€™ and that the â€˜effective provision of STEM in schools requires a foundation of strong subject teaching.â€™ The STEM Robot Mouse supports parents and teachers to bring coding to life and create exciting learning experiences.Mrs Chimes from South Wootton Infant School tried the Robot Mouse with her class:â€œThis product is absolutely fantastic for the new KS1 ICT curriculum and requirements for children to create aÂ series of instructions and plan a journey for a programmable toy. The children could use the product without adult support and really enjoyed it.â€™â€Learning Resources were also finalists in the SEN-non ICT category with their All About Me Family Counter Activity Cards and the Primary- non ICT category with Plot Blocks Story Building Activity Set.

What is STEM?

Check out other STEM related content:

What is STEM?

Why is STEM important?

STEM at Home

STEM learning in school

School is also perfect for working together to solve problems, sharing, and testing ideas, presenting the results as a team and children learning from each other.