• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Teaching Expertise

  • Home
  • Classroom Ideas
  • Technology
  • Teacher’s Life
  • Deals & Shopping
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Home
  • Classroom Ideas
  • Technology
  • Teacher’s Life
  • Deals & Shopping
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

20 Fun 1st Grade Engineering Projects For Kids To Explore

1st grade engineering challenges

April 12, 2021 //  by Lauren Du Plessis

Build a strong foundation of engineering knowledge with the help of our trusted 1st grade engineering projects. These activities encourage a hands-on approach and require that learners use problem-solving skills, ingenuity, and creativity to complete each challenge.

1. Bridge building

Provide your students with the necessary resources for them to build a bridge. Measure its structural capacity by seeing how much weight it can hold.

Learn more: Fun Science Demos

2. Paper Airplanes

Using construction paper or a relatively sturdy piece of paper, make paper airplanes! This clever STEM activity can be further enjoyed outside where learners would fly their planes and compete to see whose plane goes the furthest.

Learn more: Nerding

3. Water bottle Fountain

IMG_8595+-+Copy.JPG

Build a water bottle fountain to depict that although air is see-through, it still takes up space.

Learn more: Learn with Play at Home

4. Engineer an instrument

Sound-Science-Experiments-BABBLE-DABBLE-DO-ALL.jpg

Students are prompted to design an instrument that can produce different sounds that can be heard across a room. The students are further challenged to design a tuning mechanism for their instrument.

Learn more: Babble Dabble Do

5. Jellybean Structures 

Encourage creative design by asking your students to build any structure using jelly beans and toothpicks. This simple STEM lesson wonderfully introduces concepts of stability and balance.

Learn more: Hillsboro City Library

6. Balancing Robot

br-2.2.jpg

This quick STEM challenge allows students to learn about balance and centers of gravity. Students are given two coins and are asked to place them on the robot in a way that ensures it is balanced.

Learn more: Buggy and Buddy

Related Post:  45 8th Grade Engineering Projects To Prepare For High School

7. Solar Oven

photo_12-600x450.jpg

Get crafty and enjoy a snack whilst doing so! This solar oven project is perfect for hot summer days and challenges learners to make use of their oven to melt chocolate and marshmallows to create smores.

Learn more: Little Bins for Little Hands

8. Domino Chain Reaction

Domino-Collage-2.jpg

Design, creativity, and patience work together to help learners design a domino chain reaction. Encourage students to come up with as many domino design chains as possible!

Learn more: Frugal Fun for Boys

9. Marble Maze Craze

On a paper plate, build a marble maze! As an added challenge, encourage your students to add in obstacles for the marble to go over, under, or through.

Learn more: Yuma County Library

10. Cup tower

Build a structure with STEM learning! Set a time and see who can build the tallest tower of cups. This activity is great for individual or pair and group work.

Learn more: SciShow Kids

11. DIY Kite

photo_2-600x450.jpg

Be a high-flyer with your very own make-at-home, aerodynamic kite! This activity requires the use of simple household items such as newspapers, scissors, string, and tape.

Learn more: Little Bins for Little Hands

12. Build a mini city

Using toilet rolls, 1st graders should design a mini-city. Encourage creativity by prompting your child or learners to paint their city and even give it a name!

Learn more: Today's Parent

13. Build an army launcher

Students will enjoy catapulting various objects from their launcher. Challenge the learners to make their catapult as strong as possible in order to shoot various objects from the spoon. Have competitions to see whose design can launch an object the furthest.

Related Post:  35 Brilliant 6th Grade Engineering Projects

Learn more: Denise Bertacchi

14. Build Famous Landmarks 

Landmark-STEM-challenges.jpg

Turn this into a community-building task by challenging your entire class to build famous landmarks using blocks or other classroom equipment. Teachers should provide students with a picture to replicate in their 3D building task.

Learn more: Playdough to Plato

15. Straw Roller Coaster

Develop engineering skills by using scotch tape, glue, or blu tack to connect a plastic straw roller coaster. Once your rollercoaster is complete, use a lightweight ball to test it out!

Learn more: Sarah Dees

16. Balloon mover

Have fun designing 3 techniques to move a balloon from one end of the classroom to another without using your hands.

Learn more: Fun Science Demos

17. Spilling top mania

The perfect STEM construction challenge- Design your very own spinning top using paper, beads, toothpicks, and more!

Learn more: Babble Dabble Do

18. Float your Junk Boat

IMG_0044-1024x768.jpg

Students are challenged to design a  floating boat using junk or oddball materials. Learners can then float their junk boats in a plastic pool and even have races using straws to blow their boat from one side to the other.

Learn more: Playdough to Plato

19. Build the tallest tower

Craft-sticks-20-Edited-1280x853.jpg

Using pegs and popsicle craft sticks, tackle this fun engineering design challenge to help strengthen hand-eye coordination!

Learn more: Frugal Fun 4 Boys

20. Egg drop Project

Egg-Drop-Challenge-Bag-of-Flour.jpg

Students are encouraged to design a protective layer for eggs so that when they are dropped, they do not break. This fun engineering activity has even prompted learners to design egg parachutes!

Learn more: Little Bins for Little Hands

Related Post:  30 Cool & Creative 7th Grade Engineering Projects

Final Thoughts

The engineering challenges listed above provide both teachers and parents the perfect opportunity to engage learners in hands-on tasks. These challenges allow learners to develop crucial skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, creativity, and more! Their use within a classroom or home environment, should not be underestimated, but instead incorporated into everyday learning. Learning is better facilitated when it is done in a fun manner, and these activities tick that box perfectly!

Frequenlty Asked Questions

How do I teach Engineering to a first grader?

All engineering activities and teachings should be visually supported. Teachers or Parents should consider designing models for children to first see and analyze, before being expected to work on an engineering challenge independently.

What engineering activities are appropriate for a first grader? 

Simple activities are always best for introducing new concepts. Fun building and craft-related tasks are perfect for younger learners who have very limited engineering knowledge.

How do I introduce engineering to my child?

Explain that there are different types of engineers and actively engage your child in simple activities that demonstrate the real-world techniques employed by engineers, builders, and creators.

Related posts:

60 Excellent Argumentative Essay Topics for Middle School
20 Fun and Inventive Games for Three-Year-Olds
26 English Games To Play With Your Kindergarteners

You'll also like:

No related posts.

Category: Classroom IdeasTag: Engineering Projects

Previous Post: « Boosting your student’s reading life during social distancing
Next Post: 35 Fun & Easy 1st Grade Science Projects You Can Do At Home »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • 23 Pyramid-Inspired Activity Ideas 
  • 20 Writing Activities To Bring MLK’s Legacy To Life
  • 30 Egg-citing Easter Writing Activities
  • 7 Think Win-Win Activities For Older Learners
  • 20 Cute Crankenstein Activities For Kids
  • 20 Exciting Crime Scene Investigation Math Activities