During March break camp, we offered a STEM activity that really got everyone excited; we built magnetic cars! The children were paired up and each duo got a cardboard tube to decorate. They used crayons, markers, pencil crayons, stickers, construction paper and glue sticks to make their car their own. As the detailing progressed, we gave each team two bamboo skewers to use as wheel axis, and four wooden wheels. Of course, the wheels got detailed as well! The teams then put their cars together and secured the wheels using plasticine. Finally, we added a magnet to one end of the cars using masking tape to secure it. We were now ready to test them out! Each team got a magnetic wand and put their car on the ground. We had to first test which side of the wand attracted the magnet and which one repelled it and then we were ‘off to the races’ as the cars pushed forward!
This activity challenged our group in many ways - we worked in teams and had to navigate through sharing ideas and taking turns adding detail to the cars, we used our creativity when decorating, we learned about the science of magnets, and we problem-solved through some challenges of adding the wheels and making them stay put. We saw the children’s creative sides emerge as they added 3D details using construction paper, coloured the insides of the cardboard tubes, and even named their cars. We worked through some challenges that came along with working in teams and being eager to implement our own ideas but everything came together in the end. There was a whole lot of excitement around the room as everyone started trying out their cars and seeing them push forward, away from the magnetic wand.
We were very impressed by the process and outcome of this STEM activity, but more importantly, the children themselves were especially excited about it. Before the day came to an end, we had multiple children come to us and ask if we could do it again sometime. We hope to be able to offer this again and look forward to more and more activities involving science, technology, engineering and math.
