Spring STEM/STEAM Activities - Updated for 2026!
- Amy Wung Tsao
- Feb 7
- 7 min read
Spring is just around the corner! This beautiful season brings so many opportunities to get our kids excited about science.
Take advantage of the rainy spring weather to learn about where rainbows and clouds come from, and even make your own rainbow or cloud. Go outside and learn about the bees, butterflies, and worms that are in your garden. Birds are migrating back north, so build them a recycled bird feeder and learn to identify different birds in your region. Plus all that spring rain is a great springboard to learn about the water cycle.
Here’s all the easy, hands-on science experiments and spring STEM activities that I’ve rounded up for your below:
Make a rainbow indoors
Make a rainbow outdoors
Make a cloud in a jar
Take a pollinator walk
Make “pollen” chalk art
Build a beehouse
Summon some worms
Experiment with worms
Build a worm farm
Build a recycled bird feeder
Identify birds with a free app
Sing and dance the water cycle
Paint with water outside
Make a miniature water cycle model
Keep reading to learn more!
Rainbow Science Activities for Spring
Make a Rainbow Indoors from SciShow Kids Make your own rainbow inside, even without rain! You just need a sunny window, a white piece of paper, and a clear glass of water. Your kids can follow along, but also experiment with moving the glass and the paper around. Keep watching for a kid-friendly explanation of the science behind why we see rainbows, plus tips to find a natural rainbow in the sky.
This activity is great for home or the classroom! (Teachers, this experiment supports NGSS 1-PS4-3!)
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!)
I’m betting some of you want even more rainbow science! If that’s you, click over here for rainbow science books and videos to share with the kids in your life!
Cloud Science Activities for Spring
Make a Cloud in a Jar from Playdough to Plato
This activity needs grown-up support, but it’s definitely a memorable one!
In the sky, clouds form when water vapor condenses onto dust particles in the air. For this demonstration, you can use matches or hairspray to act as that dust, and hot water to provide the water vapor.
After this impressive activity, keep the learning going with these books and videos all about the science of clouds and storms!
Bees & Pollination STEM/STEAM Activities for Spring
Take a pollinator nature walk with your nature journal and the Seek app!
Take the kids on a nature walk and let them journal about all the flowers and pollinators they see. Start to wonder out loud about which flower shapes or colors the bees like best, and which flowers the butterflies like best.
I love whipping out the Seek app on my phone to easily identify plants, insects, and animals on our nature walks. 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 you might be able to use it on a pollinator that’s landed on a flower!
(Teachers, your students’ observations support K-LS1-1 and 3-LS4-3.)
Make “Pollen” Chalk Art from the Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History
This STEAM activity is part chalk art, part pretend play, and part scientific model! All you need is two different colors of chalk and a cotton ball. Draw different color chalk flowers. Then kids can pretend their cotton balls are butterflies and bees. When they get their cotton balls to “feed” from both flowers, they’ll see how the cotton picks up the “pollen” and how the chalk colors end up mixing. Just like pollination works in real life!
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 modeling activities support K-ESS3-1 and 2-LS2-2.)
Build a Beehouse! from SciShow Kids
Ready to go beyond learning about pollinators to helping pollinators? All you need is a tin can, 2 toilet paper rolls, paper and glue. This activity is to build a beehouse for mason bees, which do not sting like other bee species do. Building pollinator homes is good for the environment, and supports K-ESS3-3 in your science curriculum!
Now check out some great bee & butterfly STEM books and videos to pair up with these pollination science activities!
Worm Science Activities for Spring
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 K-LS1-1.)
by Inspiration Laboratories
Want to get even more hands on? This simple experiment gets kids making a hypothesis about whether worms prefer a wet or dry environment. Then let them come up with their own ideas for how to test their hypothesis! If they need some ideas, here’s a simple experiment setup using just wet and dry paper towels. (Teachers, this experiment aligns with K-LS1-1.)
And if your kids aren’t satisfied with just one worm experiment, then this next book is for them.
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 aligns with K-LS1-1.)
Build a Worm Farm from Brave Wilderness
If you want to keep some worms around for a couple weeks, here’s a video to show you how to make a temporary worm hotel. In the first 5 minutes of this video, the host Coyote handles some worms for some up-close video of worm poop, where they store worm eggs. You can even kind of see through their skin to where they’re digesting! If you’ve got a kid who is fascinated by up-close nature videos, this is for them! The last 5 minutes of the video he shows you how to make a worm farm in a clear plastic container. I love his enthusiasm, even if I admittedly am too squeamish to do this activity with my own kids.
Note that this isn’t the same as building a worm composter, which is a bit more involved. If you’re up for that challenge, check out these instructions to set up a small worm composting science experiment in a plastic container. This would make a great homeschool science project!
Want to learn more about worm science for kids? Check out my post here!
Bird Science STEM/STEAM Activities for Spring
Make Recycled Bird Feeders from SciShow Kids
Upcycle your toilet paper rolls, plastic water bottles, or milk jugs with these three easy bird feeder designs. Plus, learn about what birds really need to eat - bread crumbs are not great, and definitely don’t use trail mix that has chocolate in it! (Teachers, this one aligns with K-ESS3-3 and K-LS1-1.)
Identify birds with the Merlin Bird ID app from Cornell Lab of Ornithology
This free app from Cornell University will tell you what bird you’re looking at based on a photo, 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!
For bird science picture books and videos that pair well with these activities, check out this post!
Water Cycle Science STEM/STEAM Activities for Spring
Sing and Dance the Water Cycle from Blazer Fresh (GoNoodle)
Do you have trouble remembering the different steps to the water cycle? Well the Blazer Fresh boys from GoNoodle have a bop for you. I dare you not to sing along.
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.)
From ScienceBuddies
If you’ve got evaporation down, maybe you’re ready to see the whole water cycle happening inside a plastic bag taped to the window! (For teachers, this aligns with NGSS standards K-PS3-1, 2-PS1-4)
For water cycle science picture books and videos that pair well with these activities, check out this post!
Happy spring, everyone!
Amy Wung Tsao
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