Unleashed: Fairy Tale-themed STEM Problem-Solving Puzzles at No Cost
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Emma Vanstone, last updated on June 12, 2025
Fairy tales have been captivating children for centuries, and now they are being used to introduce elementary school students to the world of science. These Fairy Tale STEM activities engage children with familiar stories while encouraging them to apply design, engineering, and experimental testing skills.
One such activity is the Three Little Pigs Engineering Challenge. In this exercise, students design and build houses from different materials to test their strength against "the wolf's huff and puff." By applying the engineering design process of imagining, planning, testing, and improving, students learn about hypothesis testing, materials science, and iterative design.
Another popular activity is Rapunzel’s Tower Escape Engineering. Children use household materials to engineer ways to escape a tower, such as building ladders or ropes, incorporating problem-solving and physical construction skills within a fairy tale context.
The Goldilocks’ Bed Design activity encourages students to design and create a bed that is "just right" for Goldilocks. This exercise explores concepts of measurement, comfort, material properties, and design iteration to meet specified criteria.
Fairy Tale STEM activities also incorporate simple scientific experiments. For example, activities inspired by Disney tales like Frozen bubbles, magnetic mazes from Peter Pan, and rainbows from Beauty and the Beast help children explore physical science concepts like states of matter, magnetism, and light refraction.
These activities are designed to keep children engaged while teaching them scientific methods. By asking questions inspired by fairy tales (e.g., could Rapunzel’s hair support a person?), forming hypotheses, planning and conducting experiments or engineering design challenges, collecting and analyzing data (e.g., which material is strongest), drawing conclusions, and iterating designs to improve outcomes, children learn to approach problems scientifically.
Additional science activities for children include science experiments for World Book Day and easy STEM challenges. The candy house for Hansel and Gretel is a popular Fairy Tale STEM activity that keeps children busy for hours.
Sharing photos of completed Fairy Tale STEM activities is encouraged on social media, with tag @sciencesparks. These activities aim to introduce children to setting up investigations for working scientifically, making abstract scientific principles concrete and relatable, supporting critical thinking and engagement in STEM learning.
- Amidst the fairy tales captivating children for centuries, a fusion of art and science is being introduced in elementary school called Fairy Tale STEM activities, engaging children through familiar stories while promoting hands-on learning in design, engineering, experimental testing, and investigation.
- The Three Little Pigs Engineering Challenge is a popular Fairy Tale STEM activity, where students apply the engineering design process to design and build houses from different materials, testing their strength against "the wolf's huff and puff."
- In the Rapunzel’s Tower Escape Engineering, kids use household materials to engineer ways to escape a tower, such as building ladders or ropes, encompassing problem-solving and physical construction skills within a fairy tale context.
- The Goldilocks’ Bed Design activity explores measurement, comfort, material properties, and design iteration as students design and create a bed that fits Goldilocks' criteria, catering to the learning and education-and-self-development of children.
- Fairy Tale STEM activities incorporate simple scientific experiments that help children explore physical science concepts like states of matter, magnetism, and light refraction, such as Frozen bubbles, magnetic mazes from Peter Pan, and rainbows from Beauty and the Beast.
- In addition to these activities, children can delve into various science experiments for World Book Day and easy STEM challenges, engaging in activities like constructing a candy house for Hansel and Gretel, which keeps kids occupied for hours, supporting their learning journey in STEM.
