Our second STEM Day sparks creativity (and a few explosions!)

There was an extra buzz of excitement around the classrooms before half-term as pupils took part in our Spring STEM Day. With a focus on collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving, the challenge for the day was a delightful mix of engineering and celebration: designing and building an “exploding love box” for Valentine’s Day.

To encourage teamwork and group effort, pupils were placed into mixed-age groups, giving younger students the chance to learn from older peers while older pupils developed leadership and mentoring skills. The classrooms quickly transformed into lively workshops filled with cardboard, coloured paper, tape, and a huge amount of imagination.

The exploding love box challenge

Each pupil was tasked with designing a box that would burst open with a creative surprise when the four sides were untied. Built from a simple pyramid net, pupils could expand their design by adding additional leaves inside to create a lotus flower-type design.

Year 6 pupils supported Reception and Year 1, Year 5 supported Year 2 and children from Years 3 and 4 worked together in pairs.

Artistic creations

Pupils cut out templates for their love boxes from red card, then created small pockets for one or more sides, which they then filled with tiny love notes. They could then write larger messages on the base and sides of the pyramids, and fill them with all sorts of hearts, flowers and glitter.

The children were delighted to take their creations home for their loved ones and had enjoyed the off-timetable activities throughout the day. They particularly enjoyed working in mixed groups in the classrooms, which gave them chance to chat to friends outside their usual class groups.

We’re already looking forward to the Summer term STEM day!

Find out what happened on our first STEM day, when pupils were challenged to design and build their own planes in teams.