Growing Up STEAM

I recently got a National Geographic Crystal Garden Kit courtesy of Incredible Novelties. Even though the age recommendation is for kids 8 years old or older, we decided to try it out as a family. So dad, mom and 3 year old, we all sat together to have fun with it. The kit comes with 2 different tree patterns, markers to paint them, the liquid to grow the crystals, 2 bases for the trees, a geode sample, a booklet regarding crystals and the instructions on how to use the kit. To use it, you need to take the trees, paint them however you want, give them some shape by folding branches, put the 2 parts of each tree together and stand them on the bases. We all took different parts of the tree and started painting. My son had a lot of fun painting everything in orange, while my husband did a very minimalist look and I went as heavy as I could on color. After you put it together, the instructions say to set them wherever you are going to leave them when the...

I bought this Playground Engineering & Design Set by Learning Resources a few years ago in Amazon for a present. I wanted something fun but very heavily STEM related for a 5 year old girl, and this seem like a great idea. When she opened the present, she was fascinated to see a playground, and a bit disappointing when at opening the box she saw she had to build it :D That's ok, I told her it was part of the fun and I would help her. Once she started playing with it and realized she could build it however she wanted, combine the pieces however she felt, she was so excited. We played for a long time, building the set, making the play people use the playground, undoing the set and redoing it again. Her younger sister either trying to add some extra pieces, or using the second play person to use the set. She was having fun and learning Engineering concepts without even knowing! I love this play set, it's great quality, it's fun, it's very smartly created to let kid'...

These magnets are fantastic! I had seen my son play with similar magnets at the Early Years Center and liked them so much I went online in search for them. After looking at different brands, it was clear that Magformers has the market but they are incredibly expensive. NextX offers in my opinion the same quality, more pieces, for an affordable price. The set I bought came with 46 pieces with different shapes, 4 sets of wheels, and a manual with ideas on what to build. My son doesn't use the manual of course but builds incredible pieces that have become more and more complicated the older he gets.  We have use NextX magnets to build towers, houses, parking lots for his cars, trucks, castles and others. While he is doing that he is learning motor skills, engineering and physics, as putting several magnets together can cause opposite poles to reject each other and lots of frustration when he is trying to put them in a block. That's ok though, we all learn about gravity by falling...

Little Tikes makes some awesome toys and it's a brand I buy without worrying about quality. You can buy second hand without any issues whatsoever so the quality new is superb. One of their main toys is the Cozy Coupe which my son adores. He has had it since he was 2 years old (he is almost 4) and he continues to play with it almost every day. Drive it, fill the gas, get it dirty and wash it, back it up into a parking spot and use the horn when other cars are coming. It gives him the freedom to drive as adults do and practice pretend play which is so important for little kids.  Every time I think he might have outgrown it, he finds a new way to play with it. I'm actually going to be sad when I have to let it go, but will keep the memories of my son playing with it, and I'm sure it will make yet another kid happy because this little car has many more years to go! The Little Tikes Cozy Coupe is cute, sturdy and lots of fun to play with. From kid to kid, it's th...

When I first heard about Green Toys I was in love. They make all their toys from recycled materials and they are great quality. Good for the environment and for my pocket. The first chance I had, I got my son the Ferri with its 2 cars. Since then, they have provided a lot of fun for him. He plays with the cars both in land and on water, and the Ferri has been on land, the bath, and the pool.  As I'm writing this, the 2 cars are in the bathtub and the Ferri is providing the fun in the pool. My son puts other cars on it, tries to sink it, and throws it from as high as he can. We have talked about why it floats and it doesn't sink as his other toys, what capsized means when the Ferri ends up upside down after being thrown, and the very basic, like how they work moving cars from one place to another.  When you are having conversations with your kids around the activities that interest them, it's very easy to insert all sort of concepts, from vocabulary, to numbers t...

We bought National Geographic's Kinetic Sand a couple of months ago when we were looking for an easy solution to have a sand box inside the house without the mess! My first impression was how vivid the colors are and that it would provide as much fun for the parents as it would for our toddler :D After a lot of back and forth between mom, dad and toddler as to who got to play with the sand first, we decided it was only fair for the 3 year old to have fun first xD He loved that it came with different molds he could use to create things, and I loved how easily the sand came out from the molds while also keeping its shape (not to mention how easy it was to clean it from the floors when inevitably some of it ended up there). The sand was perfect, it helps my toddler practice the motor skills necessary to put the sand in the molds and take it out still intact, it has a good texture that satisfies his sensory needs, it shows him new shapes like pyramids, and it allows for free play where...