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10 Thanksgiving STEM Challenges Using Leftover Materials
10 Thanksgiving STEM Challenges Using Leftover Materials
Picture this: It's the Friday after Thanksgiving, your kitchen's finally cleaned up, and you're staring at a recycling bin overflowing with cardboard boxes, plastic containers, and pie tins. Meanwhile, your kids are already complaining about being bored, reaching for their tablets before you've even finished your second cup of coffee.
What if I told you that pile of "trash" is actually a goldmine of learning opportunities? According to research from the National STEM Education Center, hands-on engineering challenges increase student engagement by 78% compared to traditional worksheets. Your leftover Thanksgiving materials are perfect for creating memorable thanksgiving stem activities for kids that actually keep them engaged.
The beauty of post-holiday STEM projects is that they solve two problems at once: you're keeping kids productively occupied during the long weekend, and you're giving those materials a second life before they hit the recycling bin. Plus, there's something satisfying about transforming what would be waste into something creative and educational.
Thanksgiving STEAM Projects for Children
The Problem: Post-Holiday Boredom Meets Environmental Awareness
Those days between Thanksgiving and the return to school can feel endless. Your tweens and teens need mental stimulation, but they're tired of the usual routine. At the same time, the sheer volume of packaging waste from holiday cooking creates the perfect teachable moment about sustainability and engineering.
These thanksgiving steam projects for children merge creativity, science, and environmental consciousness in ways that resonate with today's eco-aware generation. You're not just keeping them busy—you're teaching valuable skills in problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and sustainable thinking.
Challenge 1-3: Engineering Challenges That Actually Work
Turkey Package Tower Challenge
Grab those plastic containers that held cranberry sauce, turkey gravy, and pie filling. Challenge your kids to build the tallest freestanding tower using only these containers and leftover aluminum foil. The catch? It needs to support the weight of a full can of cranberry sauce on top.
This thanksgiving engineering project teaches structural stability, weight distribution, and the engineering principle of center of gravity. Your teens will quickly discover that wider bases create more stability, while your tweens experiment through trial and error—both valuable learning approaches.
Give them 30 minutes and watch the competitive spirit kick in. If you have multiple kids, make it a friendly competition. The winner gets to choose the next family activity or pick the movie for family night.
Cardboard Box Bridge Building
Those Amazon delivery boxes from your Thanksgiving grocery order? They're perfect for this fall stem challenge for kids. The goal: build a bridge between two chairs using only cardboard, tape, and leftover string or ribbon from gift bags.
The bridge must span at least two feet and hold increasingly heavy objects—start with a stuffed animal, then add books one at a time until it collapses. This teaches load-bearing concepts, tension, and compression forces.
What makes this especially engaging for teens is the iterative design process. They'll build, test, fail, redesign, and try again—exactly how real engineers work. Document the process with photos and you've got a portfolio piece for school STEM fairs.
Plastic Container Boat Race
Use those disposable containers from store-bought sides and desserts to design boats that actually float. The challenge? Create a vessel that holds the most pennies without sinking, using only plastic containers, aluminum foil, and waterproof tape.
Fill your bathtub or a large storage bin with water and let the experimentation begin. This hands-on thanksgiving science experiment kids actually enjoy teaches buoyancy, displacement, and water resistance. Your middle schoolers can even calculate volume and density ratios if they're up for the extra math challenge.
Challenge 4-7: Creative Design Projects
Pie Tin Marble Maze
Those disposable aluminum pie tins become perfect canvases for marble maze creation. Using cardboard strips, straws, and hot glue (supervised for younger kids), design an intricate pathway that guides a marble from start to finish.
This november stem activity develops spatial reasoning and planning skills. Teens can create multiple levels and incorporate physics concepts like ramps and momentum. Tweens love decorating their mazes with fall themes using leftover craft supplies.
The best part? These mazes are reusable entertainment. Once built, they become actual games your kids will return to repeatedly.
Food Box Automata
Those sturdy cereal boxes and stuffing mix containers can transform into mechanical moving sculptures. Using cardboard, skewers from appetizers, and bottle caps, kids can create simple automata with moving parts.
This thanksgiving maker activity introduces basic mechanical engineering—gears, cams, and cranks. There are plenty of free templates online, but encourage your teens to design their own mechanisms. Your tweens might start with simpler up-and-down motions before advancing to more complex movements.
This project typically takes 2-3 hours, making it perfect for a lazy post-Thanksgiving afternoon.
Packaging Catapult Competition
Build mini catapults using plastic spoons, rubber bands, bottle caps, and cardboard bases. Challenge participants to launch mini marshmallows (probably have leftovers from sweet potato casserole) into increasingly distant targets.
This holiday stem activity elementary through high school students enjoy teaches trajectory, force, and angle calculations. Set up cups at varying distances and assign point values. Suddenly you've got a game that combines physics and friendly competition.
Teens can experiment with different designs, testing which modifications increase distance or accuracy. Document variables and results for a proper scientific method approach.
Egg Carton Architectural Design
If you used real eggs for holiday baking, those cardboard egg cartons become building blocks for architectural creations. Cut them into sections and challenge your kids to design a structure—a castle, a modern building, or an abstract sculpture.
This upcycled thanksgiving craft meets engineering teaches modular design and how repeated units create larger structures. Add paint and you've got an art component that transforms this into a full STEAM project.
Challenge 8-10: Science Experiments With Leftovers
Cranberry Sauce Can Insulation Test
Those empty metal cranberry sauce cans are perfect for testing insulation effectiveness. Fill identical cans with hot water, wrap each in different materials (aluminum foil, newspaper, fabric scraps, bubble wrap from packaging), and measure which keeps water warmest after 30 minutes.
This thanksgiving science activity teaches heat transfer, insulation properties, and data collection. Your teens can graph results and draw conclusions about which materials make the best insulators—relevant science for understanding everything from winter coats to home construction.
Potato Starch Bioplastic
If you have leftover mashed potatoes or potato peels, extract the starch to create bioplastic. Mix potato starch with water, vinegar, and glycerin (or corn syrup), heat it up, and pour into molds made from packaging containers.
This sustainable thanksgiving activity kids find fascinating demonstrates polymer science and provides a tangible alternative to petroleum-based plastics. The bioplastic hardens overnight and can be shaped into small items like holiday ornaments.
Teens especially appreciate understanding the chemistry behind biodegradable alternatives to conventional plastics—it connects STEM learning to environmental activism many of them care deeply about.
Package Parachute Drop
Create parachutes from plastic grocery bags, string, and small weights (washers or wrapped candies). Test different parachute sizes and shapes by dropping them from a second-story window or deck.
This post-thanksgiving stem idea teaches air resistance, surface area, and gravity. Time the descents and calculate which designs fall slowest. Your middle schoolers can apply mathematical formulas to predict outcomes before testing.
Race different designs against each other, or challenge your teen to create a parachute that delivers a raw egg safely to the ground—the classic egg drop challenge with a Thanksgiving packaging twist.
Quick Wins: Start Here
Not sure which challenge to tackle first? These five are tested winners that require minimal prep and maximum engagement:
Cardboard Box Bridge: Requires only boxes and tape, takes about 45 minutes, and the dramatic testing phase keeps everyone engaged
Pie Tin Marble Maze: Self-contained, quiet activity perfect for when you need focused concentration time
Package Catapult: Quick to build (20 minutes), infinitely replayable, and satisfies the need for mild chaos
Turkey Package Tower: Zero prep needed—just dump out your recycling bin and start building
Parachute Drop: Takes the activity outside, burns energy, and works for wide age ranges simultaneously
The Real Victory Here
These thanksgiving stem activities for kids do more than fill time—they transform how your tweens and teens see everyday materials. That shift in perspective, seeing potential instead of trash, is a mindset that serves them well beyond this long weekend.
You're also creating those unexpected moments of connection that happen when everyone's focused on solving a problem together. Some of the best conversations happen while building a cardboard bridge or testing a catapult design.
The engineering skills, scientific thinking, and creative problem-solving are wonderful bonuses. But the real win? You've given your kids screenless memories and shown them that boredom is just an opportunity for creativity in disguise.
What's Your Challenge?
Which of these thanksgiving classroom stem challenges will you tackle first? Or maybe you've got leftover materials I haven't thought of—what creative ideas are brewing in your mind?
I'd love to hear what works for your family or help you customize these ideas for your specific situation. Reach out to WizardHQ@AngelinaAllsop.com with your thoughts, questions, or ideas on how to tailor this approach to make it more relevant to you and your kids' interests. Sometimes the best STEM challenges come from combining these concepts in unexpected ways—let's brainstorm together.
