STEAM Crafts Round-Up
- Amy Wung Tsao
- Sep 23
- 8 min read
I don’t have to tell you that kids love arts and craft table. Maybe you already have an arts and crafts station in your home or classroom.
Well it’s time to add science, math, and engineering to your kids’ craft table time. There’s so many fun activities that combine STEM with crafting! Most of these crafty science activities use materials you already have on hand.
Keep reading for STEAM-filled paper crafts, upcycling crafts, outdoor crafts, and more!
Paper STEAM Crafts for Kids
from me :)
I created this craft especially for Pi Day (March 14), but you can do it all year long for a fun math + art craft! Craft a paper bracelet that fits just right when you multiply by pi. All you do is measure your wrist, fold your paper to “multiply” by pi, decorate, and tape it around your wrist!
From Learning Resources
This is the perfect STEAM craft to let kids play with symmetry and patterns, while also exercising their fine motor control skills.
Start off with simply folding a paper in half to cut a simple example of 2-sided symmetry. Then you build up to more folds and see how the symmetry changes with adding more folds!
by Mr. Schuette’s Art Class
This is another great STEAM art project inspired by the great M.C. Escher. Make your own tessellation stencils out of a Post-it note! This is another great one for fine motor control work as well. (Little ones might need some help with the cutting and taping.)
For more kid-friendly tessellation and pattern fun, check out the books, videos, and activities in this post!
from PBS Kids
This free printable is both a craft, and a hands-on interactive way for kids to play with math and geometry!
Yarn & String STEAM Crafts for Kids
Craft a Spider Web and Explore Web Vibrations from Buggy and Buddy
Make your own spider webs out of yarn or string. (Or try both, and see if that affects how the web vibrates!) This example web is a bit elaborate, but you could start with a single strand of yarn between two chairs, and then see if your kids are interested in weaving something fancier.
By plucking the web with a finger, you can make it vibrate, just like a trapped bug makes real spiderwebs vibrate. Pluck different parts of the web and see how that changes the vibrations. They might notice shorter strings vibrate differently than longer strings, for example. It’s a fun craft, physics experiment, and life sciences activity rolled into one!
Outdoor STEAM Crafts for Kids
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!)
Don’t just feed the birds. Learn the science of how they fly and talk to each other with these bird science books and videos!
Build a Beehouse! from Scishow Kids
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. This is a STEAM craft activity that is good for the environment and gets your kids outdoors!
After you’re done with this craft, I’ve got lots more bee and pollinator science for kids here.
Flying STEAM Crafts for Kids
from SciShow Kids
Here's a basic airplane fold for younger kids! Then take this activity deeper by experimenting with adding a paperclip for weight, or using lighter or heavier paper.
For older kids, here are folding instructions for the Sky King design that set a world record in 2009!
You could also check out this ScienceMax clip for folding tips to stop your airplane from rolling or diving.
from SciShow Kids
With a safe place to drop parachutes (standing on a stable chair would work!), let kids experiment with their own parachute designs! Younger kids will need a little bit of help assembling their coffee filter parachutes.
from NASA
My kids have asked to do this activity multiple times over the past couple years! If you have a printer to print out the template, great! If not, you could easily trace the design onto plain paper. Cut it out, do a little bit of simple folding, and then drop your helicopter propellers and watch them spin down to the ground! This works best if your kids have a safe place to drop their helicopters from.
Outer Space STEAM Crafts for Kids
from SciShow kids
If you’ve got preschoolers working on their tracing or cutting, this activity also works on those fine motor skills. And if you’ve got a kid that likes puzzles, they might feel pretty cool making their own puzzle of the moon!
from NASA
This one is for the elementary or even middle school age kids who like to tinker and invent! How hard was it to land astronauts safely on the Moon? Make your own lander using a paper or plastic cup, some index cards, plastic straws, rubber bands, and marshmallows to be your “astronauts.” While the instructions are written as a classroom activity, I could also see this as a fun think-outside-the-box challenge for a kid who has a long rainy afternoon ahead of them.
The Moon is a perennially fascinating science topic for kids! You can find more Moon science books, videos, and activities here!
Building STEAM Crafts for Kids
from SciShow Kids
Kids can easily build cup towers along with this 4 minute video. They’ll learn by doing how wider bases help with stability. They’ll need at least 6 paper or plastic cups, depending on how high they can stack!
from Science Buddies
Not only do you get to craft a gingerbread house, but then you get to put it through an earthquake test and a wind test, just like real engineers! I love that this could also get kids thinking about how structures can be strong in some situations but weak in others.
Keep your kids building and thinking with the books and videos in this post, all about structural engineering for kids!
Solar Powered STEAM Crafts for Kids
Paint with sunscreen!
from Kids Activities Blog
This art project shows kids the power of both sunlight and sunscreen! Let them paint sunscreen onto bright construction paper with a brush or fingers or even stamps. Then put your painting 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 with different sunscreen brands or types! Maybe the results this might influence your sunscreen purchases next summer.
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?
After you’ve painted with sunscreen and melted crayons, check out these great sun science books and videos!
Simple Machine STEAM Crafts for Kids
Add a toilet paper roll and a rubber band to your spoon for a catapult! Congrats, you’ve made a simple machine - specifically, a lever.
Try moving the toilet paper roll (the fulcrum) higher or lower on the spoon handle. If you move the fulcrum closer to the side you’re pushing on, it will feel a little harder to push but should launch your projectile farther. And adding a target to hit makes this science experiment into a game!
from Busy Toddler
Find a cardboard box or a big book and build some ramps for your kids to experiment with! Let them independently figure out how changing the angle of the ramp affects where their balls land. This is hands-on learning all about ramps, one of engineering’s simple machines.
Want to build on these crafting activities? Check out this post for books, videos, and other activities about simple machines!
Magnetic STEAM Crafts for Kids
Paint with Magnets! from Left Brain Craft Brain
This is such a great combination of art and science! Paint with a magnet and bits of metal that you found in the scavenger hunt. And experience yourself how the invisible magnetic force can actually go through objects like paper!
This activity will be easier to do with a strong magnet, stronger than your standard fridge magnet. Learning Resources has some options in its $19 Magnet Movers set, or you can find a single magnet wand for around $6 online.
Make a Paper Clip Float in Mid-Air! from Mombrite
Here’s a STEAM craft that feels a little bit like magic, because magnet can make things float!
This one will need a really strong magnet. Our magnet wand from Learning Resources was just strong enough to float a single paper clip, but two clips were too heavy. Still, floating one paper clip was pretty darn impressive to all my kids, and it was super easy to set up! Building a LEGO structure to hold the magnet is completely optional, as you can easily hold the magnet by hand instead.
Magnets aren’t just fun to craft with. They’re fun to play with! Find out how to play and learn with magnets here.
Real Working Electrical STEAM Crafts for Kids
Craft a mini lightsaber! from Science Buddies
Forget buying your kid a new lightsaber. Help them make their own, and let them learn a little bit about electricity and circuits along the way!
This is not an activity that a kid can do independently, but it is pretty quick once you get the materials. All you need is a small button battery, an LED bulb (which you could possibly scavenge from a light-up toy, or are relatively cheap to buy), a plastic straw and some electrical tape.
from the Exploratorium With some cardstock, aluminum foil, LED bulbs and coin batteries, you can make all sorts of light-up cards! Who would you give this light-up snowman card to?
Craft a light up snowman! from Squishy Circuits You could buy the kit, or use your own playdoh, modeling clay, LED bulb and button battery!
Now learn just why all these circuits work with these electricity science books and videos for kids!
Even More STEAM Crafts for Kids
from Chicago Botanic Garden
This print was actually made from the spores falling out of a mushroom’s gills. Just snip the stem off of a mushroom, and leave it on a piece of paper overnight!
Full disclosure, I haven’t tried this myself because I prefer not to think about the spores inside my yummy mushrooms. But it does look pretty cool! Let me know if you try it out!
from The Winkle
A great science + art project using pipe cleaners and plastic drinking straws! Kids can craft along with the video, learning about the names of bones and their proportions. Younger ones will definitely need some help with this project.
Once you’re done crafting, check out these fascinating skeleton science books and videos for kids!
Art + science + upcycling!
Did you ever make Shrinky Dink art as a kid? Well this art teacher shows us how to make the same kind of shrinking plastic art with Plastic #6, sharpies or colored pencils, and a bit of sandpaper.
Craft a Mini Recycler from Science Buddies
Sorting through mixed paper, plastic, and metal in the mixed recycling bin is a truly tricky engineering problem. Why not let your kid try to design a solution? Check out this video for some ideas on building a model recycler!
from ScienceBuddies
This is a craft that you can tape up on the window and keep watching over the course of days! You’ll see the whole water cycle happen as the water evaporates and condenses over and over again.
I hope you get to level up your next kid craft time with STEAM! Let me know which activity you’re most excited to try in the comments below!
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Keep lighting sparks of curiosity,
Amy Wung Tsao
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