Science Activities:

Christmas Tree Homemade Slime - With only washable glue, liquid starch, and some green food colouring, you can make your very own Christmas tree out of green slime! Creating homemade slime is a great way to introduce polymers and non-Newtownian fluids to kids, and this holiday-themed activity allows them to flex their creativity by decorating their slime as well. 

Build Your Own Stonehenge - Track the sun and moon's position in the sky during the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) with your very own Stonehenge. Stonehenge was built 4,000-5,000 years ago in present-day England and is suspected to be an ancient druidic calendar.

Dissolving Candy Cane Experiment - What kind of liquid will make candy canes dissolve the fastest? This experiment can be easily adapted to your needs, and it's a great way to introduce and play with the scientific method (plus, seeing candy canes dissolve before your eyes is surprisingly engrossing).

Technology Activities:

Code with Anna and Elsa - We've all realized by now that Frozen is never, ever going away, so why not embrace it as a useful educational tool? Kids who love Anna and Elsa will enjoy helping them solve puzzles using the basic blocks of coding. Computer science is a subject that girls are usually not introduced to at a young age, which makes activities like these incredibly important - and if you can't stand Frozen, well...you might just have to let it go. 

Emojify - Google's Made With Code program has released a festive emoji creator for the holidays, and it's a perfect way to introduce younger kids to some of the basic aspects of coding. Emojis are fully customizable and super adorable - the possibilities are endless! 

Google Santa Tracker - Another great coding resource from Google. This one functions like an advent calendar, with a new coding-related activity released every single day of December! Be sure to tune in to track Santa's trip around the world on December 24.

Engineering Activities:

Engineer This: LED Ornaments - Making your own LED ornaments isn't as hard as it seems! This tutorial walks you through creating a light-up ornament in under 30 minutes, without a lot of hassle. These ornaments help teach teach kids about circuits and electricity, while making the perfect additions to your tree.

Christmas Egg Drop - The mission: Out of Christmas-themed materials, such as wrapping, bows, and gift bags, create a structure for a raw egg that will protect the egg from cracking when dropped. The outcome: An activity that encourages creative thinking and ingenuity. And possibly some cracked eggs. 

Marshmallow Structure Build - If you have too many marshmallows and not enough hot chocolate to use them in, consider this engineering challenge. Older kids will enjoy trying to figure out how they can make their structure carry the most weight!

Math Activities:

It's Snowing Angles! - Although snow might not be everyone's favourite part of winter, it's certainly one of the most educational. In this activity, kids will learn to identify right, obtuse, and acute angles by looking at different snowflake designs. To end the lesson off with some fun, you can even make some snowflakes of your own! Teaching math skills and good interior decorating sense at the same time? That's what you call a win-win. 

Mathing With the Dreidel Game - The Jewish Dreidel game involves simple adding and subtracting. Playing this game can help children in grades K-2 practice their math skills in a collaborative team.

Christmas Lights Math - This online math-based game encourages kids to solve as many addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problems they can in one minute. The more they solve, the more lights they are given to decorate their house with! This is an especially great way to practice the multiplication table. 

Collaborative Activities:

The winter celebration of Kwanzaa is a secular holiday observed from December 26-January 1 as a celebration of Pan-African culture and heritage. The principles of Kwanzaa are similar to those of STEM fields, as there is a focus on reflectiveness, collaboration, and responsibility. See below for the Seven Principles, with ideas for activities that relate to each one!

Umoja - Unity: To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race. Activity idea: Collaborate to build a cardboard chair that actually works, or collaborate to clean up an oil spill using these instructions.

Kujichagulia - Self-Determination: To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves. Activity idea: Check out these problem-solving engineering STEM activities for families.

Ujima - Collective Work and Responsibility: To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together. Activity idea: Use the free Mystery Math Town app together to rescue fireflies that are hidden in Math Mystery Town! 

Ujamaa - Cooperative Economics: To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together. Activity idea: There are plenty of money-related games online to help kids learn about budgeting, spending money, and even running a business. Check some games out here.

Nia – Purpose: To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness. Activity idea: Practice your building skills by making structures out of only clothespins, binder clips, and craft sticks!

Kuumba - Creativity: To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and benefical than we inherited it. Activity idea: Without a clean planet, communities suffer. To teach kids about climate change, visit NASA's list of climate change activities, then see the Canadian government's eco challenges for kids.

Imani - Faith: To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. Activity ideas: Have your kids make thank you cards for their teachers. Write letters (or Tweets!) to women in STEM you admire. See our list of women you should be following on social media here. Hear the Untold Stories of Women in Science and Technology on the White House's website, and discuss as a family how underrepresented groups in STEM are important for a well-rounded, vibrant industry.

For more information about Kwanzaa, you can check out the Official Kwanzaa Website.

Want more ways to practice STEM this holiday season? Check out our list of Back to School STEM activities. You can also click here for our blog post on videos that will help young girls why they can (and should!) pursue STEM.