Sara Smith
Bridge-Building Preschool STEM Activities for Preschoolers
These activities involve creativity and engineering for kids that let's them experiment and use their imaginations while also building skills in the STEM-field!
At Kids Collaborate in Winchester, California, they did a number of bridge-building STEM activities with their kids. Here are some you can do in your classroom!
Building Bridges Engineering Activity
Popsicles and Paper Souffle Cups
For this activity preschoolers are encourage to build their own bridge out of glued-together Popsicle sticks and paper souffle cups so that they can put over a big gap or imaginary river. Show the students how by placing the Popsicle sticks on the Paper Souffle Cups it creates stability that then allows all kinds of fun possible bridges to be built!
STEM activities for preschoolers
Lego Bridge
Using Lego blocks to build a bridge is great because the pieces easily snap together and there is not mess from glue. Preschoolers love to play with Lego blocks and will be excited to try and click them together in a way that makes a bridge over a gap, imaginary river, or whatever else you challenge them to have a bridge cross!
Paper Tube Tunnel-Bridge
You can use cardboard paper tubes so that you have a covered/tunnel-bridge that the students can put toys like mini-cars in! By taping the paper tubes together and having them go-down at an angle kids can watch with glee as they put their toy cars in one end and the cars are able to pass all kinds of obstacles the tunnel-bridge crosses before popping-out at the other side.
Tape Bridge
Really young preschoolers who struggle with some of the more advanced concepts in the above activities can still get-in on the fun! This tape-bridge activity just encourages students to use tape to create their own little bridges between paper tubes and have them maybe stack on one another with extra stability thanks to the tape.
