STEM activities with a fairy tale theme

Jack and the Beanstalk

Grow your own bean plant
- Measure and record its daily growth.
- Measure and record how much water you are giving it.
- Try growing different plants in different conditions (e.g. with lots of light/ in the dark, lots of water/ less water).
- Draw a graph of the plants' growth.
Make a model of a bean plant
- How tall can you make it?
- Can it hold the weight of a toy Jack but collapse with the giant?

Build a model bridge to span a river - draw a design, measure it carefully, make it.
Design a raft to carry a goat across the river
- Which materials do you think will work best?
- Build your rafts – do you need to change your design?
- Test your rafts to see if they sink or float.
- Can your raft support the weight of your goat?
- To make it a fair test always use the same goat

Build a tower
- Design, construct, measure and make it
- Hold a competition in your house - who can build the tallest tower?
- You could use lego, cardboard, rolled up newspaper etc
Make hair braids using coloured wool. Measure and compare the braids in length. Are they long enough for the witch (and prince) to climb the tower?

Make a gingerbread house. You will need weigh out the ingredients carefully. You may need to scale the quantities depending on the size of the house you are making. Make sure you keep them in proportion!

Here is a gingerbread recipe that you could try:

Add butter, golden syrup and light brown sugar to a pan. Stir on a low heat until sugar has dissolved.
Add flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger to a mixing bowl then stir together. Make a well in the centre and pour in the sugar and butter mixture.
Stir together to form a dough (it might be easiest to use your hands).
Wrap in clingfilm and let chill for 30mins to firm up.
Lay the dough between two sheets of baking parchment. Press dough lightly with a rolling pin. Give a quarter turn than repeat.
Give it a final quarter turn, then start to roll backwards and forwards, giving regular quarter turns. Until dough is roughly thickness of a £1 coin.
Using a biscuit cutter cut out the shapes, or use your own house design
Bake at 190°C (170°C fan) mark 5 for 10 to 12min, until lightly golden brown.
The biscuits won't be firm but will harden when left to cool outside the oven.
Decorate with icing and sweets!

Try building houses from different materials and then testing them for strength. To make the test fair you could try using a hair drier to blow them over.