Amazing April Read Alouds and STEM Challenges
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Looking for some fun ways to engage in STEM and maker learning this spring? This month’s read aloud selections offer hands-on learning that will keep your students exploring the seasonal changes around them, thinking creatively, and designing for a purpose.
There are so many benefits to adding a read aloud to your STEM lessons. When we connect children’s literature to STEM and maker learning opportunities, we tap into important skills for our students including:
Problem-solving
Comprehension
Creativity
Divergent thinking
Hands-on learning can be incorporated within the read aloud or as an extension activity. You can implement these lessons at any time of year, but here are a few stories that are perfect during the month of April. Be sure to check out the monthly menus to find all sorts of activities to connect to each book.
The Curious Garden
The Curious Garden, written by Peter Brown, is the story of a little boy named Liam who never lets the dreariness of his surroundings stifle his curiosity. Rain or shine, Liam loves to explore the outdoors. He stumbles upon a few plants growing on the abandoned rooftop and watches as those plants grow and flourish with a little bit of love and attention. This story follows Liam and his garden through the cold, winter season and highlights the effects that one small boy and his curiosity create for those around him. After reading the book, students can explore spring related design tasks like these:
Many flowers have symmetry. Pick some flowers and explore their symmetry or find some images online and draw your own symmetrical flower design.
Liam sees arches by the abandoned railway. Build some arches using cardboard or other recyclables.
Liam stepped in puddles on a rainy day. Create a gadget to prevent you from stepping in a puddle and getting wet.
Get the Read Aloud STEM menu for this book here.
Jasper and Ollie Build a Fort
Written by Alex Willan, Jasper and Ollie Build a Fort tells the story of two friends going through the design process to build the perfect fort. You can follow along as they plan, design, build, daydream and test their forts…the greatest forts ever! Jasper and Ollie each take very different approaches and together they find out what works and what doesn’t. Take your students on a fort designing adventure with activities like these:
Create a blueprint of your own fort design.
Create a special feature for your fort. A doorbell, a slide, or something entirely different.
What activities will friends play in your fort? Incorporate a game or activity into your design.
Get the Read Aloud STEM menu for this book here.
April Foolishness
Teresa Bateman has written a hilarious story of two grandchildren desperately trying to get Grandpa’s attention. Chaos erupts on the farm, but Grandpa is unfazed as he whips up a delicious breakfast. He is certain the children are playing an April Fool’s Day joke until Grandma teams up with the grandkids and tells Grandpa that April Fool’s is tomorrow! Grandpa gets quite the scare, but the joke is on him. Grandma was part of the grand plan. Your students can help Grandpa calm the chaos on the farm with these STEM read aloud activities:
As the farmer makes his breakfast, he is using food items that the farm animals have provided. Create a menu listing all the items and which animal they come from.
The gate to the pigpen is broken. What can you design to fix this problem?
Write an extension to the story and figure out a way for the farmer to get back at the grandma and grandkids for playing the April Fool’s trick.
Get the Read Aloud STEM menu for this book here.
Kenya’s Art
Spring vacation is almost over and Kenya has realized that she doesn’t have anything to tell her class about her time off when she returns to school. Taking a break from daily chores, Kenya and her dad visit an art museum featuring artwork created from recycled materials. They return home to share and create with the family. Recycle! Reuse! Make art! It turns out, Kenya has a pretty amazing story to share with her classmates about spring vacation. Kenya’s Art by Linda Trice is the perfect spring read aloud. Explore the theme of recycling with students with the following activities:
Find a broken toy or one with a missing part. Can you fix it or think of a way to reuse the toy for another purpose?
Who wants to fold laundry? Design an invention to fold towels or another chore that you don’t like doing.
Kenya visited the museum. Create a poster or a brochure to show the exhibits you would like to see at the museum.
Get the Read Aloud STEM menu for this book here.
The Thing About Spring
Mouse and Bird are excited to share the good news about spring’s arrival with their friends in the book The Thing About Spring by Daniel Kirk, but Rabbit isn’t nearly as excited. Together the friends discover a few surprises as winter ends and spring arrives. Give your students the opportunity to explore and observe the surprises spring brings following a long winter with activities like these:
Do a snow experiment. Make a snowball and bring it inside. Put it in a bowl and set a timer. How long will it take to melt? Use an ice cube if you don’t have snow.
Spring is time for things to grow. Plant a seed in a plastic cup with some soil. Give it some water. Observe it each day and record the changes.
Rabbit is trying to save the snow. Build a snow-saving machine to help Rabbit.
Get the Read Aloud STEM menu for this book here.
The Biggest Easter Basket Ever
Easter is coming and the mice of Mouseville have many preparations to make…including creating Easter Baskets for the town contest. The Biggest Easter Basket Ever by Steven Kroll tells the story of how Clayton and Desmond come together to build the biggest Easter Basket ever. After reading this story, your students can participate in Easter related STEM activities like these:
Measure the dimensions of your Easter basket. How tall? How wide? What is the diameter? Radius?
Try the egg drop challenge! Use recyclable materials to protect your egg and then drop it while standing on top of a chair and holding it above your head.
Survey your friends and family. What is their favorite kind of Easter candy? Create a graph to show the results.
Get the Read Aloud STEM menu for this book here.
Spring is the perfect time to dust off the winter blues and create meaningful learning opportunities in our classrooms. Things are changing all around us, including the seasons. Students can engage with great books and explore their learning in hands-on ways. This can happen with simple materials and in ways that are fun for learners. Each story shared in this post has a menu of activities for you to try with your students. Be sure to check out the menus for more activities that partner with these amazing April read alouds.
If you need more ideas for implementing Read Aloud STEM virtually, check out the following resources:
Our April Read Aloud STEM Menus are full of activities for each of these books that will keep your students engaged and asking for more! Get the STEM Menus Here!
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