How to fuel my 6-year-old's STEM passion? School's not cutting it. Any cool websites, toys, or advice?

[thestemengineer]

So I am an electrical engineer single dad of a small kid (6) in Oxfordshire who seems to be interested in STEM/Electronics. I have never done this before, how do I make sure he can grow his passion? Schools don't really do anything, do they?
Do you use any websites, resources, or toys?

Please help 😂

We looked at these for our DD (didn't end up getting them so can't fully endorse though)

www.kiwico.com/monthly-science-kits-for-kids

I got mine a science tutor.

Bright starts is a good website!

Conversation
Museums
Documentaries
Modelling toys
Stupid challenges at home (e.g. using cardboard to make marble runs around the house)
Junk modelling in general

Don't be intense, just play.

Museums, science fairs (there was one in my town recently run by the University), children’s science magazines? A chemistry set for Christmas?

Marble runs, click circuits, lego. Is coding with Scratch still a thing?

Well, if you don't know what to do, @thestemengineer.......

Seriously- surely there are plenty of kits and things available? My children made crystal radios, burglar alarms- loads of things.

At that age you don't know if they are theoretical or practical or design oriented, so see what they like. Do they want to draw a bridge, or build a bridge, or just talk about how the bridge stays up? Anything is fine.

Luckily STEM is everywhere!

Move them to a (private) school that will nurture it? My DD’s private prep school has various STEM clubs and extension projects and qualified specialist science teachers from age 7.

yeah these kinds of subscriptions are good, seems like many parents are recommending them. Why though? What's so cool about them? Some of them are expensive and I am not sure they are actually useful?

can't go to private schools yet... money...

@MidnightOnceMore amazing comment, didn't think about it, to me was just STEM in general, but this makes sense. did you do this with your kids? please tell me more

@Wtafis in person or online? I think in person would be more expensive and I am not sure I can afford it... at least online is cheaper sometimes but ... does it work?

Have you taken him to the wonder lab at the science museum? That could be a nice Christmas holidays daytrip, might give you more of an idea where his interests lie too. There's lots of hands on activities and the talks/ demonstrations/mini lectures are great too and then there's the rest of the science museum to explore. If you want to make a real trip of it you could stay overnight and go in two days and target different exhibitions. We live more locally than you and spent nearly 5 hours just in the wonderlab last time

Meccano, Lego, science activity kits, lots of interesting videos, and explaining the scientific concepts behind things they ask about.

A hot wires kit?
A Raspberry Pi?
Simple chemistry experiments book?

Can you narrow it down at all?

STEM is such a huge area; your child must have some more focused interests to lean into, surely?

@ditalini I have tried showing him some coding myself, did you find those subscriptions/kits useful? Why? I am worried they're just a waste of money

See if you can get school interested in First Lego League - you could volunteer as a mentor maybe? Teams don't have to be from schools though so you could consider entering a private team. I don't have any experience of the junior competitions as my sons only did the main one for 9-16 year olds but it was brilliant - one of the best extracurricular activities they've ever done.
https://education.theiet.org/first-lego-league-programmes/?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=FLLMasterpiece-Registration&gclid=CjwKCAiA9dGqBhAqEiwAmRpTCyVj9Lgfl8szac0nKfKaBy0uQ0MfUIHHF9Wn64_vOgQ4L2ouODUThhoCu0AQAvD_BwE

seems like he mostly likes space, and astronauts, stars, planets. I got him a few toys on space, we watched documentaries and videos on youtube kids too. he likes chemistry too it seems. I am trying to nurture his passion for space, he wants to be an astronaut (like every other kid I guess 😂)

@SgtJuneAckland yes, the science museum, I have seen the wonderlab, I think it's time for a weekend in London...

At 6 he should be exploring all sorts of things and then you can nurture his interests from there. brightminds is great for STEM toys but even toys that you may think he has outgrown can be great. Exploring gravity with a marble run, or a piece of drain pipe and different size and mass marbles and making observations if the size or mass change the speed the marble travels down the drain pipe.Making automatons from cardboard can be very simple or extremely complicated. Just about everything can be given a STEM twist it's how you explore it together. Snap circuits or good but better for older children.

Mine enjoyed the microbit https://microbit.org/

Think some libraries gave them to lend out.

Also got a few books on scratch programming. Which we worked through together.

Another thing that they really enjoyed was Ozobot robots. This is going back a few years but they were pretty reasonably priced then.

ozobot.com/

Buy some space food for him to try.
Glasgow science museum is amazing and we found it much better for hands on activities, infarct DD chose to go twice on our holiday.

@Singleandproud wait what is space food???? Sounds interesting!

I think we're closer to London, but I heard great things about the Glasgow one...

Whizz pop bang magazine. Turing tumble. Spintronics.