Three Little Pigs STEM Activity

A while back, T (who was doing the MOMS Club calendar at the time) asked me to host some sort of a science activity for the kids. Of course, I agreed, but I had no idea what to do.

Pinterest to the rescue!

After pinning several messy ideas, I found this STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) activity based on The Three Little Pigs. We have a winner!

I used the printables she suggested, Three Little Pigs at Graphics by Ruth, and laminated them all, so they'll last for Peeper to play with. I gave each kid (and a couple of adults) one, and had them help me to tell the story, by holding them up at the appropriate times, and by "filling in the blanks."

Then, I split them up into groups, and had them build houses out of (drinking) straws, (craft) sticks or (Lego) bricks. I gave the more stable materials to the younger kids, to cut down a bit on the frustration factor.

Then, the Big Bad Wolf showed up, and tried to blow them down. (Photo to come.) As one would expect, he was able to blow down both the straw and sticks, but not the brick.

I talked to the kids about why the brick is most stable, and asked what other things they could build houses from that might be stable. We steered them toward "logs" (Peeper was supposed to give that answer if no one else did, but she forgot.) and I told them they could experiment with the Lincoln Logs, and let us know if they wanted the Big Bad Wolf to give them a go.

Then, of course, we ate. I was rather proud of myself for the menu:

Strawstacks (chow mein haystacks), pretzel sticks with smoky bacon dip, sandwich "bricks," and Wolf brand chili-cheese dip. Plus some watermelon, just because we bought a watermelon on Saturday and need help eating it.

I thought of the straw/stick/bricks a while back, but the bacon dip was added when Peeper picked it out at the street fair on Saturday, after sample several flavors, and I came up with using Wolf brand chili at the grocery store last night.

While we were there, I picked up some ugly paper plates, but this morning, as I was looking for plastic cups, I came across the leftover plates, napkins and utensils from Peeper's first birthday party, and decided they looked like piggy-pink to me!

I found this adorable (and used with no permission at all) piggy graphic at about 2 am, and did a little photoshopping to make signs identifying the food.

And the juice boxes. We had three flavors, so I covered them in straw, stick and brick art, with the piggy identifying the flavor.