Chaos or calm? Hitting the road over the holidays can bring a mix of both. Whether heading to the beach, the slopes, or distant family, holiday travel comes with big excitement, but it can be stressful, especially for kids. OK, for parents, too. But working on the kid piece of the equation can add up to happier everyone.
Having fun activities planned while on the go helps fill travel time with curiosity and creativity. Even better if those activities help develop STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) skills!
School Zone has lots of resources to make it easy to pack learning into any trip. This post shares practical travel hacks and fun STEM activities for kids to make the journey playfully educational and keep everyone happy and stress-free during the holiday season.
Why STEM + travel make for smart holiday fun
Right now, you are likely far more concerned about keeping vacation plans on track, than kids’ future career plans, but in our fast-changing world, STEM is a big part of the landscape now and into the future.
According to CodeWizardsHQ, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data, “STEM jobs are projected to grow 10.4% between 2023 and 2033, almost 3x faster than non-STEM jobs.” They also note that “only 20% of high school graduates are prepared for college-level coursework in STEM majors.”
Making STEM activities part of kids’ holiday break benefits them today and tomorrow. The National Inventors Hall of Fame®, in a post titled What Is the Value of STEM Education?, notes, “By introducing children to STEM concepts in approachable ways, we can help them see the relevance of these concepts in the world around them, making them far less intimidating.”
They add, “Hands-on learning is especially effective in leading children to find confidence and even joy in exploring STEM subjects. As children engage in active learning, they build lasting skills that will serve them well, both in school and in life.”
Here are a few key benefits of blending STEM-based learning and play:
• Sparks curiosity and creative thinking.
• Builds problem-solving and critical thinking skills. In a fast-changing world, economy, and workplace, these skills are always in demand.
• Makes learning fun through real-world, hands-on experiences. In turn, this can spark an interest or even passion for STEM concepts that can lead to continued learning and even a successful career in related fields.
• Develops resilience and adaptability. Through low-stakes trial and error, students learn that challenges and setbacks are part of the process. This encourages perseverance.
• Keeps kids off screens while keeping their brains busy.
Most STEM activities can be adapted for cars, planes, airports, or hotel stays—making them perfect for holidays!
Travel hacks to keep things smooth and safe
Lots of variables outside our control affect travel plans: weather, flight delays, construction, detours. These things can be hard on seasoned, adult travelers, but they can really wreak havoc with kids’ routines, schedules, and attitudes.
Here are a few practical tips for stress-free travel days:
• Pack a learning + emergency bag: Fill it with books, worksheets, flash cards, and small STEM toys. (Don’t forget to pack some snacks, spare clothes, and a first-aid kit for the journey as well!) Making sure you have everything you may need in arm’s reach (and not buried in the suitcase) will make the journey stress free.
• Rotate toys and activities: Depending on their age, every child will have a different attention span. For example, Normal Attention Span Expectations by Age from Brain Balance® says a typical 6-year-old’s attention span is 12 to 18 minutes and an 8-year-old’s is 16 to 24 minutes. Not long, right? Try and introduce a new toy or activity every hour (or when you feel you need to) to maintain excitement and engagement.
• Plan a quiet hour: Whether a child is doing some learning on a device (why not try Anywhere Teacher, School Zone’s online learning program for ages 2-8?) or watching an episode of their favorite series, some calm, focused time mid-trip and a little quiet go a long way to making a good day. This may be perfect for a delayed flight or stuck in traffic.
• Download before you go: If you are going to use technology during your trip, make sure to have downloaded everything you need, as you may not consistently have internet access to do so on the road!
• Give kids responsibility: During the trip, assign small tasks, like being in charge of their own small bag or a couple of toys, to give them sense of ownership over the trip.
Think of holiday travel as a collaborative project that involves all team members!
Plan STEM Fun for the Road (or Sky!)
When we hear “STEM activities,” we sometimes picture science labs filled with mystery and complex equations. Here are a few low-mess, low-stress, age-friendly STEM ideas that develop science, math, and creativity skills during travel:
• Shape Spotting: Identify triangles, circles, and rectangles in road signs or airport designs. Make it into a game of who can spot a red circle first! For little ones who are just learning shapes, School Zone’s colorful Shapes Workbook gives extra practice and slips easily into totes and carry-ons.
• STEM Activity Books and Digital Resources: Pack some books, puzzles, or worksheets that the kids can complete while on the go, such as our Big Science Workbook 2-3. It includes both informative activities and hands-on STEM fun and experiments. The Anywhere Teacher app has non-fiction books like Awesome Owls and Adventurous Otters, cool life cycle videos (apple tree, butterfly, frog, and water cycle), weather flash cards, insect flash cards, and much more.
• Arts & Crafts: Pack some small and easy crafts to do in the car. A few Lego® blocks or pipe cleaners will give your kids different things to make. They could be things you can see out the car window or things relating to winter! Find lots of pipe cleaner how-to’s on YouTube or let these pipe cleaner spiders from Blissful Domestication serve as a starting place.
• Pattern Snack Challenge: Use snacks you have available and let kids make and extend patterns with a yummy treat afterwards. Have them arrange different-colored/shaped foods like fruit, cereal, crackers, or veggies in repeating sequences (A-B-A-B or A-A-B-B) on a plate or tray, creating edible art.
With a little planning, a few simple on-the-road learning ideas and activities can make travel time go by faster and sharpen STEM skills.
Get hands-on with STEM at your destination
Once you arrive at your stay-put-for-a-while place, options expand for STEM fun and learning. In between planned excursions, try these STEM activities for holidays:
• Travel Engineering: Build the tallest tower you can, using napkins, plastic cups, playing cards, or whatever you can find in your hotel. Or why not try building a bridge and seeing if it can hold the weight of a nearby object?
• Weather Watchers: Create a journal or pictures that track the temperature, weather, and colors throughout the trip. If you go on a walk, pick up some leaves or flowers you can press into the journal for an extra special touch.
• Paper Airplanes: Experiment with different paper types and fold designs to see which plane flies farthest or stays in the air the longest. Discuss the forces of flight: lift, thrust, drag, and weight.
• Kitchen Chemistry: Recruit some help baking Christmas or post-Christmas treats and turn it into science fun. Bake cookies or make cocoa and talk about—and practice—melting, measuring, and mixing.
• Bath Time Breakthroughs: If you’re staying at a place with a tub (and some of this could work in the kitchen sink), try floating and sinking objects to teach concepts of buoyancy and density. Discuss why bubbles form (surface tension) and why some substances dissolve in water (they are polar or ionic, allowing water molecules to attract and pull them apart).
As Community Play Things observes in Kids in STEM, “Children are naturally curious about the world around them, always asking, ‘Why?’ ‘What is that?’ ‘How does that work?’ ‘Why is that happening?’ Their curiosity leads them to explore their environment, problem-solve, invent, and discover new things, which ultimately leads to future learning and development.”
Nurturing kids’ natural curiosity and showing them the math and science involved in simple, everyday scenes and situations makes these subjects more relatable and accessible.
Choose School Zone for stress-free holiday learning
Simple STEM activities pack big-benefit extras into holiday adventures. School Zone has multi-subject resources to keep your children entertained during holiday travels while educating them at the same time, which is important for avoiding “winter slide.” (See recent blog post, How to Keep Kids Learning During Winter Break (Including Anywhere Teacher!). Just a few School Zone offerings include:
• Anywhere Teacher for easy use anywhere
• Flash cards for quick, portable, educational fun on the go
• Work/activity books that are perfect for waiting at the airport or in the car
For even more educational travel activities for kids (and stay-home fun too), we offer a DIY Learning page with directions for projects like making a poster for a misunderstood animal and Fact Snacks with fun facts and questions like “Which animal can catch and eat up to 600 insects in an hour”?
Move from “Are we there yet?” to “Let’s learn more!”
The best trips aren’t just about getting there; they’re about exploring along the way. But remember: every family is different, so what might work for you will be different for somebody else. In general, STEM play turns downtime into discovery time, and a few travel hacks keep families organized and calm.
As we say on our website, “Teachable moments are everywhere! You can often help your child sharpen important skills by integrating lessons with everyday activities. Walk down the sidewalk, peek into kitchen cupboards, or see highway signs with fresh eyes. Check back often for new ideas.” This is true wherever you are and wherever you go.
Anywhere Teacher and other School Zone tools make it easy to learn anywhere, anytime. Visit SchoolZone.com for creative, colorful learning tools that help produce a stress-free holiday.
