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Outdoor STEM/STEAM Activities Round-Up (Updated for 2026!)

  • Writer: Amy Wung Tsao
    Amy Wung Tsao
  • 16 hours ago
  • 9 min read

Parents! Need to get your preschool and elementary age kids outside over school break? Get their wiggles out and activate their minds with these outdoor STEM/STEAM activities for young kids!


There's plenty of ideas here for parents to get kids outside during spring break or summer break. Or for teachers to get kids learning outside of the classroom.


Click on the links below to jump to a specific activity, or scroll down to explore all my ideas for easy, no-prep or low-prep outdoor kid fun with STEM & STEAM!



Outdoor Movement STEM Activities for Kids


Diagram of a salmon migration obstacle course, including an ocean area with fishing nets, a migration path with predators, dams, and waterfalls, and a spawning ground at the finish line.

Make a migration obstacle course!

DIY version from Science World 

Printable version from Survive the sound

Migrate like salmon through an obstacle course filled with waterfalls, dams, predators, and fishers. 


I love this activity because it gets kids active and moving, and can easily turn into independent pretend play! Plus it’s easy to modify for your circumstances. You could play this indoor with string or jump ropes to outline the migration corridor, and stuffies and furniture as the obstacles.  Or you can play this outside with chalk to draw the migration corridor and obstacles. I can see this working for just one kid or groups of kids as well. I love the idea of migrating multiple times, each time adding a new obstacle for your kids to navigate.


Cover illustration of a caterpillar crawling across the cover. Picture book title reads "Gotta Go! Gotta Go!"


And don’t miss these fun migration science books and videos to bring your obstacle course to life for kids!





Boy tossing a small white ball at a white circle on a black posterboard that’s taped on a garage door.

From Pre-K Pages

Have your kids throw a ball at a toothpaste moon to make “craters”. This is a pretty memorable way to reinforce how asteroids made craters on the real Moon, with bonus points for physical activity outside! Perfect for younger kids, but I bet older siblings will join the fun as well.


Cover illustration of kids in spacesuits and party hats jumping and smiling on the Moon. Picture book title reads "If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon".


And if you want to more Moon science, check out this post! 





Jump, spin, move to practice counting or skip counting

Combine counting with movement! For preschool and kindergarten kids, hopscotch is the perfect movement activity to practice counting to 10 or 20. How many times can you bounce a basketball? How many times can you go up and down on the swings? Learning to count does take repetition, but there’s no reason for repetition to be boring. (Teachers, this aligns with Common Core standards K.CC.A.1, K.CC.B.4.A, K.CC.B.4.B)


You can also practice counting backwards. Try counting down from 10 before sliding down a slide, or jumping down from a park bench. 


Older kids can practice counting by 2’s, 5’s, or 10’s. This is called skip counting, and is a foundational skill to learn multiplication and division. How many bubbles can you pop? How many twirls can you do before you get dizzy? The counting goes faster when you skip count! (Teachers, skip counting aligns with Common Core standards 2.NBT.A.2.)


Cover illustration of a young boy with a yellow helmet riding his red bicycle past a large dump truck, mixer truck, and oil tanker on the street. Picture book title reads "20 Big Trucks in the Middle of the Street".


And when you’re ready to go back inside, here’s more ways to make counting fun!





Find simple machines at the playground!

Your regular neighborhood playground is probably full of simple machines! Slides are just ramps, anything that spins is basically a wheel-and-axle, and see-saws are really levers. 


Some questions to spark curiosity in your kids - Why do you go faster on a steeper slide? On a spinning merry-go-round, do you move faster if you sit on the edge or in the middle? How do you balance a see-saw? (For teachers, getting your kids to compare pushing and pulling in different directions on the playground aligns with K-PS2-1.)


Cover illustration of a lion stepping onto a platform. One child has his hand on the lion's back. Another child is trying to pull down a lever to lift up the lion on the platform. Picture book title reads "How Do You Lift a Lion?"


And if you want to learn more about simple machines, check out this post!


 

Colorful Outdoor STEAM Activities for Kids


Small child hands out and smiling below a rainbow in the spray from a garden hose outside on a grass lawn.

from Hands On As We Grow

This time go outside with a sprinkler! You can also use a hose spraying a fine mist. Make sure the sun is behind you, and then experiment with different angles to try to make the biggest rainbow you can!

(Teachers, this experiment supports NGSS 1-PS4-3!)


Cover illustration of a light beam going through a prism to turn into a rainbow. Picture book title reads "Let's Make a Rainbow!"


Next, go deeper into the science of rainbows with these fun books and videos for kids!





Flowers drawn on the sidewalk with pink, yellow, and blue chalk. A hand holds a cotton ball that has picked up pink, yellow, and blue chalk dust.

Make “Pollen” Chalk Art from the Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History


This STEAM activity is part chalk art and part scientific model! All you need is two different colors of chalk and a cotton ball. Draw different color chalk flowers, and then use the cotton balls as your pollinator, feeding from both color flowers. Notice how your pollinator picks up the “pollen” as it feeds! 


If you’re a teacher and going outside won’t work for your class, you can try this activity with paint on paper and cotton balls. Or here’s another indoor classroom activity that uses Cheetos as the “pollen”. 


(Teachers, all of these pollination models support K-ESS3-1 and 2-LS2-2.)


Cover photo of a green chrysalis hanging from a stick. A blue butterfly's wings can be barely seen through the chrysalis walls. The picture book title reads "Handle with Care: An Unusual Butterfly Journey".


Now you’re ready for even more butterfly, bee, and pollination science for kids.




from Plum Landing on PBS Kids


What a super easy art activity that also demonstrates water evaporation! All you need is water, a paint brush, and a spot of sidewalk in the sun. Plus more evaporation activities with construction paper and plastic baggies.  (For teachers, this aligns with NGSS standard K-PS3-1.)



Cover illustration of a smiling round water droplet. The picture book title reads "DROP: An Adventure through the Water Cycle."


For water cycle science picture books and videos that pair well with this activity check out this post!






Orange, yellow, green and blue construction paper with simple paintings of flowers, trees, and a smiley face.

from Kids Activities Blog

This art project shows kids the power of both sunlight and sunscreen! Let them paint on bright construction paper with a brush or fingers or even stamps, then put your paper outside. After a few hours, the paper color will have faded except where the sunscreen is. (You might keep one sheet of paper out of the sun to compare against the faded color that’s been in the Sun.) For older kids, you could experiment to see if different sunscreen brands or types last longer or react differently!  



Top half of the image shows a heart cookie cutter and a star cookie cutter lying on a sheet of foil, with broken crayon pieces inside each cookie cutter The bottom half shows the melted heart and star-shaped crayons that have resulted. Text in the center reads “sun melted recycled crayons.”

from No Time for Flashcards


Just imagine telling your kids that the Sun is so hot today, it could melt a crayon. If you happen to be in the middle of a heatwave, you could at least use the weather for a cool artsy science project, right? What a tangible way for kids to experience how the Sun’s energy is both light and heat!  


Cover illustration of the Sun in bowtie and sunglasses strutting down the red carpet , watched by the other planets. Picture book title reads "The Sun is kind of a Big Deal".


Want to get your kids learning more about solar energy and Sun science? I’ve got you.




Kids’ Outdoor STEM Activities for the Nature Lovers


from Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Learn more about the birds you meet on your nature walk. This free app from Cornell University will tell you what bird you’re looking at based on a photo, the sound of its birdsong, or from answering 5 simple questions (location, date, bird size, bird color, what was the bird doing). It’s supposed to be over 90% accurate! 


Cover illustration of black and grey birds, eyes closed, floating on choppy waters below a glowing Moon at night. Picture book title reads "How Birds Sleep".


For bird science picture books and videos that pair well with these activities, check out this post!





Take a big number nature walk

Take a nature walk and look for examples of big numbers in nature - like leaves on the tree, or blades of grass in the yard. With younger kids, you could ask them to consider whether there are more blades of grass in the yard than leaves on the tree. For older kids, you could count the leaves on one branch, then use that information to try to estimate how many leaves there are total. Who knows where your walk and conversation will take you?


Photo illustration of many colorful dots in a grid. Picture book title reads "A Million Dots."


Got kids that are excited about really big numbers? Here’s more books and videos to spark their curiosity!



with Ranger Zak

Take along a journal or just some blank pages on your next walk, and let kids journal about their experience as they go along!If your kids have never done a nature journal before and don’t know where to start, the friendly Ranger Zak has some fun ways to use all 5 of your senses to fill out your nature journal! (You’ll want to bring along a snack for something safe to taste.)


Identify every plant or bug you see on your next nature walk with the Seek app! It’s easiest with plants, since they stay still while you move your camera around it until the app has enough visual information to identify the species. But it’s also fun to try to use it on a bug crawling on the ground, or a butterfly while it’s drinking from a flower.


There is so much to learn about earthworms, but first you’ll need to find some! Since worms prefer dark, moist places, try looking under rocks or digging in the dirt. 


But if you’d rather not dig, the UK Natural History Museum has a pretty magical way to “summon” worms out of the ground by pouring a mustard water solution (1 large tablespoon of ground mustard seed with 1.5 litres of water) into the ground. 


If you want to go a step further, get your kids nature journaling about their worm encounters. Kids can draw what they see, hear, and feel. They can write down any questions they have or funny things they observe. (Teachers, have your students look for patterns in their observations like “there are more worms in dark places than sunny places” to align with NGSS K-LS1-1.)


Cover illustration of a smiling girl holding a worm, and a boy looking on nervously.

By Jodi Wheeler-Toppen


Calling all kids who want to play with worms all day! This book is an instruction manual specially for kids to find a worm and gently interact and experiment with it.


There are instructions to shine a flashlight through a worm’s body, observe how it reacts to the smell of rubbing alcohol, and listen to the sound of a worm’s bristles scratching on paper. This one book is an entire classroom or homeschool science lesson on its own! (Teachers, the activities in this book align with NGSS K-LS1-1.)


Cover illustration of a worm on top of a compost bin in a garden. The picture book title reads "Worm Makes a Sandwich", with the worm saying "All by myself?"


Want more ways to play with worms and learn at the same time? Check out this post!



Even more Kids Outdoor STEM Activities


from SciShow Kids


Explore your neighborhood and help the environment at the same time! This video has real practical tips to help keep storm drains in your neighborhood clear of litter, so they don’t end up in rivers, lakes, or the ocean. (Teachers, this one aligns with K-ESS3-3.)


Cover illustration of four children in a rowboat, looking down at a swirl of trash and sea creatures in the water below them. Picture book title reads "The Mess That We Made."


Want to get your kids learning more about clean water? This post has you covered.




from PBS Kids

This video shows the experiment indoors, but if you’ve already got a kids’ water table outside, that’s even more fun! Give your kids metal spoons and plastic spoons and see if they can make a conclusion that explains why one sinks and one floats. 


To go the extra mile, you can practice the scientific method of defining the question, making a hypothesis, gather data, analyze the data, and make conclusions.  (PBS Kids has a colorful Cat-in-the-Hat themed chart that you can use to record your data.)  (Teachers, this experiment aligns with NGSS 2-PS1-1.)


from SciShow Kids

Here’s another science activity about flotation that is even more fun when you use your outdoor water table. All it takes is aluminum foil to fold a foil boat! Now here’s the science - what boat design can carry the most marbles? (Or pennies, or beans…) You could try a canoe design like these kids Sophie and Zane, or try your own design. Definitely try a flat sheet of foil or a crumpled up ball of foil too to compare with your boats! (Teachers, this engineering design activity aligns with NGSS K-2-ETS1-1.)


Cover illustration of a cartoon chicken and goat holding hands while balancing on a barrel floating in the water. Picture book title reads "What Floats in a Moat?"


And here’s a lot more fun ideas to learn about the science of sinking and floating!




from SciShow Kids 

Here's a basic airplane fold for younger kids to get hands on with the science of flight! You could experiment with adding a paperclip for weight, or using lighter or heavier paper. 


Want to get more advanced? This ScienceMax video explains how to change your paper airplane to keep it from rolling, pitching up too fast, or turning.  (Teachers, get your kids testing out these paper airplane changes on several different airplanes, then compare how the airplanes fly to align with NGSS K-2-ETS1-1.)


And if you’ve mastered a basic paper airplane already, here are folding instructions for the Sky King design that set a world record in 2009!


Cover illustration of a young boy in a helmet and safety vest looking down at his contraption which has crashed onto the ground. Picture book title reads "Jabari Tries."


Want to learn more about the science of flight? Check out this post!



Whew, that’s a lot of reasons to bring your learning outside! 


Have fun lighting sparks of curiosity in the great outdoors!

Amy Wung Tsao


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