I love doing fun STEM activities with my students! This teddy bear bridge activity is always a big hit with my class each year. It’s very simple to set up, and we can do it over and over again once the kiddos get the hang of it! I also love that it promotes team work.
LET’S PREP:
Here are the materials that you need: teddy bear counters, popsicle sticks, and cups. I used the small dixie cups and found that those work best.
I also used the book: 21 Elephants and Still Standing to introduce the idea of what a bridge is.
I got the idea to use this book from: Playground Parkbench!
OUR ACTIVITY!
We read 21 Elephants together, and then talked about bridges. I showed them some pictures of other bridges, and we talked a little bit about how bridges are strong. I told them that for our activity, we were going to pretend that our teddy bears were elephants 🙂
When my students did this STEM project, I had them in small groups of 3. The first time that we built our bridges, each group got 20 teddy bear counters, 4 dixie cups, and 4 popsicle sticks. Their goal was to build a bridge that would hold ALL 20 bears at the same time! I loved seeing my students work together to design their bridges. They did such a great job!
The best part, was that each group’s bridge looked different! They were so creative.
When we did this activity again, I changed the number of popsicle sticks and cups that I gave my students as a challenge! I gave each group only 3 sticks and 3 cups. It was fun to watch them try our activity again! I also added a couple of extra bears to see if that made a difference.
That is one of the things I like about this project: there are lots of ways to extend it and change it! I came up with a fun extension worksheet for my students to record what their bridges looked like.
MORE STEM FUN!
I love doing STEM activities with my students. Click on the links below to check out some of my other STEM activities:
FAMILY STEM CHALLENGE
HALLOWEEN STEM HOUSES
VALENTINE STEM BALANCE
3 LITTLE PIGS STEM HOUSE
Thanks for stopping by! I hope your enjoy doing STEM in your classroom. 🙂
