Team Building Activities STEM Centers Back to School Icebreaker Games

Get started with STEM with 21st Century Skills - Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking! These make great ice breakers.

Students learn 21st-century skills using 10 low-prep STEM centers. The perfect resource for back to school season for building a strong team of students who can work together effectively in the classroom.

Why STEAM centers?

STEAM centers expose students to a lot of different ideas, materials, and challenges in a short amount of time. These challenges keep the attention of students and allow them to pick up those valuable STEM skills little by little as they work through each challenge.

STEAM centers also give students the flexibility to work independently or with a partner or small group. Look through the preview to see all of the STEM centers.

How to use STEAM centers:

Each center can be used as a whole class STEAM challenge or you may choose the activities you want students to complete and have them rotate through the activities as centers. If you are doing these challenges as centers we recommend students work for 10-15 minutes per center.

Includes:

• Teacher instructions
• Center place cards for tables
• STEM worksheets
• 4 C's 21st Century Skills posters
• Examples for each activity
• 10 STEM challenges
• NGSS Standards
• Common Core Standards
• TEKs Standards

Center 1: Span the Gap

Suggested Materials:

• LEGO or DUPLO
• KEVA planks

Center 2: Block Masterpiece

Suggested Materials:

• 4 sets of the same LEGO or DUPLO
• Ziploc bags

Center 3: Piece By Piece

Suggested Materials:

• Ziploc bags

Center 4: Tower of Power

Suggested Materials:

• cups
• popsicle sticks

Center 5: Marble Madness

Suggested Materials:

• 4 paper towel tubes
• marble or pom pom ball

Center 6: Mission Safe Ground

Suggested Materials:

• 3-5 plastic cups
• bear counters or similar manipulatives
• 6-10 popsicle sticks

Center 7: Domino Dynamics

Suggested Materials:

• dominoes

Center 8: Save Sam

Suggested Materials:

• 1 LEGO Minifigure (Sam)
• 1 small plastic cup (boat)
• 1 pipe cleaner formed into a circle (life preserver)
• 4 paper clips

Center 9: Maze Craze

Suggested Materials:

• Unifix cubes
• ping pong ball
• straws

Center 10: Precision Drop

Suggested Materials:

• small beach ball
• large bowl
• two nylon jump ropes