• Home
  • About
    • Contact
    • Disclosure and Privacy Policy
    • Getting started with STEM
    • FAQs
    • Meet Our Team
      • Meredith Anderson
      • Brooke Brown
      • Carol Davis
      • Get Caught Engineering
      • Kerry Tracy
      • Sarah Lalonde
      • Science School Yard
      • Vivify STEM
      • Brittany Washburn
      • Sarah Wiggins
  • Posts
    • All Posts
    • STEM
    • Science
    • Technology
    • Engineering
    • Math
    • Teaching Tools
  • Free STEM Resources
    • Free STEM Resource Library
    • Free STEM Activities from our Authors
    • Upper Elementary Freebie
  • Best STEM Challenges
    • The Best STEM Challenges EVER
    • 60 Low Prep STEM Activities Bundle
STEM Activities for KidsSTEM Activities for Kids
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact
    • Disclosure and Privacy Policy
    • Getting started with STEM
    • FAQs
    • Meet Our Team
      • Meredith Anderson
      • Brooke Brown
      • Carol Davis
      • Get Caught Engineering
      • Kerry Tracy
      • Sarah Lalonde
      • Science School Yard
      • Vivify STEM
      • Brittany Washburn
      • Sarah Wiggins
  • Posts
    • All Posts
    • STEM
    • Science
    • Technology
    • Engineering
    • Math
    • Teaching Tools
  • Free STEM Resources
    • Free STEM Resource Library
    • Free STEM Activities from our Authors
    • Upper Elementary Freebie
  • Best STEM Challenges
    • The Best STEM Challenges EVER
    • 60 Low Prep STEM Activities Bundle

STEM Warm-Ups and Bell Ringers

Posted by Meredith Upper Elementary, Back to School, Classroom Management, STEAM, STEM No Comments

It’s time for some STEM warm-ups!

Are you looking for STEM bell ringers? You’ve found them! Activate your students’ brains with these STEM critical thinking warm-ups. This download contains 16 tasks, 4 that focus on each of the aspects of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

These warm-ups can be done independently (use the optional recording page) or as a whole class activity. You can even use them as sub activities in a pinch, and I’m sharing a sample of them with you for free (see below to grab your copy).

Why use STEM warm-ups?

These prompts set the stage for students to start thinking outside the box! Tap into the creative and problem-solving brain areas before diving into STEM challenges. It’s so important to warm up the brain and these tasks provide a simple but effective way to do that.

You wouldn’t go out and run a marathon without warming up and preparing for it, and you can’t expect your students to find success in STEM without warming up and practicing too! There are so many different ways to practice for STEM challenges, by doing things like science experiments, data analysis, brainstorming sessions, breakerspace activities, tinkering, and of course warm-ups!

I love using a variety of team-building, creative, and critical thinking warm-ups to get the brain going. Find team building activities for your students here or download a creative sketching warm-up activity here.

You don’t need a lot of materials or time to do these activities.

Materials Needed

  • paper
  • index cards
  • a hole punch
  • toothpicks

Now What?

Once you’ve completed the STEM warm-ups, make sure you have STEM challenges ready to go. My favorite STEM challenges for upper elementary all use simple materials but are always a hit.

Grab the Freebie (includes 8 critical thinking warm-ups)!

No Comments
Share
10

About Meredith

Meredith Anderson is a STEM education advocate and former homeschooling parent. A mechanical engineer by training, her passion is creating STEM educational resources for elementary through secondary students around the world.

You also might be interested in

STEM Challenge–Flying Letters

STEM Challenge–Flying Letters

Oct 26, 2015

Preschoolers and kinders make great scientists because they ask a[...]

How Do I Make Time for STEM?

How Do I Make Time for STEM?

Mar 18, 2016

When your day is scheduled for you from start to[...]

Amazing STEM Classrooms that Inspire

Amazing STEM Classrooms that Inspire

Sep 1, 2019

Amazing STEM Classrooms from Awesome STEM Educators One of the[...]

Leave a Reply

Your email is safe with us.
Cancel Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Categories

Tag Cloud

apps art Back To School building Christmas coding elementary engineering engineering freebies fun stuff Halloween STEM holidays holiday STEM homeschool hour of code kindergarten LEGOs lower elementary makerspace Middle School National Engineers Week paper airplanes preschool STEM problem solving programming science Science School Yard SCRATCH seasonal STEM simple STEM spring STEAM STEM STEM challenge STEM class STEM Classroom STEM Success STEM Teacher task cards technology towers toys upper elementary Valentine's Day Videos

Pinterest

Most Liked Posts

  • Simple STEAM Christmas Tasks By Sarah Wiggins on December 4, 2015 177
  • Create a Simple Tessellation By Meredith on October 8, 2019 148
  • Team Building for STEM Challenges By Carol on December 10, 2015 120

Recent Comments

  • sally sea on Winter STEM with Snowflakes love these!
  • Carol on Team Building for STEM Challenges What a fabulous idea! I will have to try this!…
  • marie girolamo on Critical-Thinking-STEM-Warm-Up-Bell-Ringer-Activities-2 Teaching a stem discovery class and these would be helpful....i…

Find us on

On Facebook at

Contact Us

Send us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you!

Send Message
Science. Technology. Engineering. Mathematics. Get Started

Popular posts

  • Create a Simple Tessellation
  • Team Building for STEM Challenges
  • Simple STEAM Christmas Tasks
  • Two Easy STEM Tower Challenges!
  • 5 Easy STEM Challenges You Can Do with Paper Plates

Get started with STEM

Get started with STEM!

STEM Activities for Kids

Our goal is to provide STEM resources, ideas, and encouragement to teachers, parents, and students. Our team is made up of educators, parents, engineers, and lifelong learners; our common bond is that we are all STEM enthusiasts.

Contact Info

  • STEM Activities for Kids
  • info@stemactivitiesforkids.com
  • https://www.stemactivitiesforkids.com

© 2025 — STEM Activities for Kids

Prev Next