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Today is my kids’ first day of summer break! With summer already here (or just around the corner) for many families, I’ve made a list of all our summer STEAM favorites!
This list has our tested and approved list of toys, games, activities, and books to keep kids busy, learning, exploring, and having screen-free fun this summer!
My Top 9 Summer of STEAM Essentials
- The Amazing Book of STEM – A workbook to learn about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, with activities, puzzles, games, and 10 amazing experiments. It’s my newest book, and I’m so proud of everything in it!
It will keep kids ages 9-14 busy all summer long! Pack it for a long car ride or airplane flight (there is plenty to read, plus many puzzles and games), or do the 10 experiments during boring or rainy days at home.
It’s the perfect end of school year gift for kids going into 3rd-8th grades! Surprise them with an educational book that’s actually fun too!
- Butterfly garden kit with live caterpillars – I showed my kids the cup of caterpillars I ordered them a few months ago, and they all screamed with joy! This kit is so great, it comes with everything you need: from the cup of live caterpillars, to the net to hold the butterflies for a few days once they emerge from their chrysalis. The instructions are detailed and helpful so you won’t have any confusion on what to do.
We have raised butterflies a few times now. I find it a little gross, but my kids LOVE it! They learn so much watching the complete life cycle of caterpillar to butterfly. You see all the changes take place up close and personal, and these kits make it so easy, there is no reason not to try it!
It’s bittersweet releasing the butterflies to the wild after raising them for a month at home. We were sad to say goodbye, but we knew they would thrive because we have many butterfly friendly plants in our yard.
- Fun shaped kites – We got these fun kites for Easter this year, and this was the first year all 3 kids had success flying kites! These kites are such cute shapes, and they fly well! They held up to strong winds and light winds, and still continued to fly.
I was so impressed how well they flew, we have already spent several Sunday afternoons flying them, and I know we will fly them more this summer, anytime we see light winds and a cloudy sky (so it’s not as hot).
Kites are teaching kids about the principles of aerodynamics as they see the effects of lift, drag, gravity, and thrust. These kites worked great for us (and even held up to getting stuck in a tree), but if you want to make your own I have blog post sharing how, linked here!
- Rubrik’s Cube – My son is just finishing 6th grade, and he and his friends really got into Rubrik’s cubes this year at school. He taught himself to solve by watching YouTube videos. Now he is working on speed. We even bought him a mat he can use to time himself as he solves.
According to him, the type of cube is important to be able to move it quickly to solve fast. He loves this cube and spent his own allowance money on it. This summer is great time for kids to learn to solve the Rubrik’s cube, then they can show off their new skills to their friends when school starts again in the fall!
Rubrik’s cubes teach kids STEAM skills such as problem solving, memory, spacial awareness, and logical thinking.
- Make giant bubbles – We visited my family in New Jersey in March for my grandfather’s 100th birthday party. My aunt had giant bubble solution and wands for the kids to play with, and my kids couldn’t get enough (even in very chilly weather). Of course I had to buy it once we got home, and it’s even more fun in the warm weather. Kids won’t mind getting a little wet from the bubble solution when it’s hot outside!
I knew my 4 year old would love it, but I didn’t realize the older kids would love it too. My son had friends over, and the 11 and 12 year old boys had a blast making giant bubbles! I foresee lots of giant bubble making for us this summer! You can buy the giant bubble solution and giant bubble wand (or just the bubble solution refills) on Amazon, linked here.
Giant bubbles are teaching kids about surface tension and viscosity, and teamwork when using the giant wands. Get ready for lots of smiles and hearing “let’s do it again!” when you get your kids this giant bubble kit this summer!
- STEAM Activity Journal – A guided notebook to learn about Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math, create experiments, notes, drawings, and designs. It’s my first book! This notebook will allow your kids to get creative and imaginative this summer.
Curious kids can use the pages to record experiments, activities, exploration, lemonade stand sales, butterfly lifecycle, garden planting and progress, how many laps they can swim, the size of bubbles they create…the possibilities and uses are endless.
It’s a perfect gift for kids who love to write and draw, and also love STEAM! Let them get creative and bring the book along to record all their adventures this summer!
- Bunch O Balloons – This is one of the best inventions ever for kids, in my opinion! Do you remember struggling to fill up water balloons with the hose as a kid? So many broken balloons, and it took FOREVER! This kit makes filling balloons so quick and easy. Every time we get these I am blown away by the invention. So simple, so smart, so life changing for kids everywhere. There is no excuse not to have a water balloon fights this summer when it’s this easy!
After the water balloon fight you can encourage kids to write in their STEAM Activity Journal about other inventions they can dream up that would make summer even better for kids! My suggestion? Water balloons that decompose! Because finding and picking up hundreds of pieces of water balloon pieces in the hot sun isn’t fun, but at least we’re already wet when we do that.
Water balloons are teaching kids about buoyancy and density as they watch the filled balloons in the bucket of water, and they are learning about the Newton’s laws of motion as they throw the balloons at objects (or each other). It’s also teaching them responsibility: they have to clean up after all the fun, because you can’t leave the pieces of plastic all over the ground.
- Halley Harper, Science Girl Extraordinaire: Summer Set in Motion – This is a perfect summer read for kids! Science experiments (and disasters) and summer camp, count me in!
The Author, Tracy Borgmeyer, is also an engineer and STEM blogger! She writes stories she would have loved as a kid. My kids and I have loved reading the Halley Harper series, and this summer is the perfect time to start with the first book, as Halley goes to her first year at Camp Eureka.
You can read our full review of this awesome STEM book series for kids in my blog post here.
- Dominoes – We love building and toppling dominoes. In the summer we have more down time for elaborate builds and epic videos of the topples. It takes a patience and a steady hand, but it’s so worth it.
This is a summer activity that never gets old for us. It’s a perfect indoor activity for a very hot or rainy day. This kit has hundreds of dominoes in all the colors, and chain reaction accessories to make the builds even more exciting.
Dominos topples teach kids about chain reactions: one domino falls, knocking down the next, and so on. This is potential energy in the first domino being converted to kinetic energy when it falls. Kids are learning how to design fun shapes and structures and optimal spacing so the dominoes fall onto each other.
Will we use everything on this list this summer? YES! Will my kids still have way too much screen time? YESSSssss…It’s all about balance and doing our best.
Over the next week or two I will be sharing Instagram reels for how we use everything on this list so you will see why we included it. You can find this list in my Amazon affiliate storefront!
What item on this list are you most interested in getting for your kid this summer? Here’s to the best summer of STEAM ever! We’ll be sharing new STEAM activity posts this summer too. My kids said they are excited to experiment again with me, and I can’t wait!
I can’t pick a favorite from this list. I know my kids will have the best summer ever!