3 Creative STEM Activities for Learning At Home
Getting Started with Virtual STEM Activities for Kids
If you are looking for new ways to get students excited about STEM activities while learning at home, we’re here to share three great STEM activities for kids with a fun, creative twist.
With many schools still closed across the country, we know it’s challenging to connect with students and offer meaningful engagement and STEM activities for kids. This is especially true for those students who rely on music education to get them through the school day. Sarah Robinson, a former public school music educator who is the strategic partnership coordinator for the Grammy Music Education Coalition, noted in a recent Washington Post article that "music programs like band, orchestra, and chorus create safe spaces for many kids".
That’s why this week, we released a new set of Musical Splats STEM activities that mix coding programs and music for students to get down to the beat at-home.
Using a system called MIDI, kids can create their own totally unique songs with the Splats coding programs. These STEM activities for kids were designed to be student-facing so you can send them directly to students and are great for students K-5.
What you need:
1) An iPad OR a laptop with internet access and a Chrome Browser
2) Unruly creativity to create your very own songs with block-based coding programs!
How it Works:
In these STEM activities for kids, students are challenged with making music for The Unruliest Gorilla on the block, Crash. Crash is going bananas at home and he needs STEM students everywhere to make music through code and share it so he can dance his heart out! Use the different beat sounds on the Splats app to create your very own unique songs for Crash to dance to! Kids create the music, and crash dances to it!
To use these STEM activities, Unruly Splats is offering free access to their Splats coding web app, best accessed on a laptop with a Chrome Browser or an iPad. If you haven’t used the Splats web app before, we’re sharing a quick and easy guide to start splatting virtually!
3 Epic Virtual STEM Activities:
STEM Activity 1: Unruly Drum Machine
In this activity, STEM students create their own drum machine and learn about how the repeat and delay functions change up the program. Kids can create different sounding drums beats with all sorts of funky sounds that are built into the app. These STEM activities also come with a video explanation for kids below:
STEM Activity 2: Splats Boombox
MIDI stands for musical instrument digital interface. With MIDI, kids can create music with a computer! Explore MIDI and Splats with this musical splats STEM activities. With our quick instructions, students will be blasting a cool tune in no time.
STEM Activity 3: Splats Band
In the third STEM activity, kids will combine all the skills from the first two STEM activities and become a Splats DJ with a range of amazing digital instruments and sounds.
Send Crash Your Code!
Crash loves to dance and he’s thrilled to get new tunes. Teachers everywhere are collecting their students’ STEM activities and sharing them with Crash. If you’re lucky, you might even see Crash rockin’ to a beat your class created, like this original dance below!
How to send Crash student creations:
Chromebook (or laptop): In the Unruly Splats app → students click the user tray on the right hand side → hit “save my project” → Give it an Unruly Name → hit “save” to save it in the app and “export” to export it as a .txt file. Students can send the .txt file in an email and teachers can import the code to see it by hitting “Create a Project” and then “Import my project” and selecting the .txt file. To send it to Crash, email the .txt file to education@unruly-studios.com!
iPad: Have students do a screen recording on their iPad device to see their code and hear it! To send it to crash, email the video recording to education@unruly-studios.com! Check out this awesome student-created video of her musical Splats code below.
Now it’s time for you and your STEM students to create some epic music! Can your students code their way to get Crash going bananas for the beat? We can’t wait to find out! Explore more Splats STEM activities for kids below.
