Grade 2 STEM Journal | Full-Year Engineering Design Journal
Make Grade 2 STEM easier to organize, document, and assess with a full-year journal featuring 36 hands-on STEM challenges. Designed to pair with the Grade 2 STEM Full-Year Curriculum, the resource gives students a consistent framework for investigating problems, developing designs, testing solutions, recording data, and using evidence to explain their conclusions.
The journal includes six pages for every challenge, along with 36 exit tickets, six unit self-assessments, a year-end portfolio opportunity, and Grade 2 STEM vocabulary. Students move through a structured engineering process: Ask, Imagine, Plan, Build, Test, and Improve.
The 36 challenges cover six units:
Engineering Design
Students define problems, consider criteria and constraints, develop multiple solutions, and improve prototypes.
Matter & Materials
Challenges investigate material properties and how materials can be selected or modified for different purposes.
Forces & Motion
Students explore movement, forces, testing, and design solutions involving motion.
Living Systems
Engineering challenges connect design thinking with plants, animals, habitats, and living systems.
Earth & Weather
Students investigate weather and Earth processes while designing solutions to related problems.
Human Solutions
Challenges focus on practical problems and designing solutions that meet human needs.
Each challenge follows a five-session structure. Students first identify the problem, criteria, constraints, and vocabulary. They then investigate and generate three possible design ideas before selecting one. During planning, they sketch and label their design, identify materials, and make predictions. During building and testing, they conduct repeated trials, record results, and create graphs. Finally, students change one variable, retest, compare before-and-after results, and explain what the evidence shows.
The journal emphasizes evidence-based STEM thinking. Students repeatedly practice collecting data, conducting fair and repeated trials, creating graphs, comparing results, and supporting explanations with numerical evidence. Rather than simply deciding whether a design worked, they learn to answer the question: “How do you know?”
The resource is flexible for whole-class lessons, STEM centers, engineering stations, partner work, or independent documentation. Teachers can bind the complete journal or print the relevant pages as needed.
With consistent routines, built-in prompts, data structures, reflections, and assessments, the journal provides a practical way for Grade 2 students to think, design, test, measure, improve, and explain like engineers throughout the school year.
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K - 5 STEM Journal Bundle | Full-Year Engineering Activities
K–5 STEM Journal Bundle | Full-Year Engineering Design Journals | 216 Challenges, 1,588 Pages Six full-year student STEM journals — 36 hands-on engineering challenges per grade, one for every week of the school year — with the recording pages, data tables, reflection prompts, and portfolios already built in. Print, staple, and your students have a year of documented engineering. These are the student-facing journals for the K–5 STEM program: the place where kids plan, sketch, predict, record trials, graph results, and explain what their evidence shows. The engineering process grows with the student — from four picture-supported steps in Kindergarten to a ten-step optimize-and-communicate cycle in 5th Grade — so a school running all six gets one coherent progression instead of six unrelated notebooks. What's Included Six complete grade-level journals (1,588 pages total): Kindergarten STEM Journal (152 pages) — 36 challenges, 3 pages each. Ask → Imagine → Build → Share. Drawing, tracing, circling, and counting prompts; minimal writing. Ends with an Invention Convention. 1st Grade STEM Journal (211 pages) — 36 challenges, 5 pages each. Adds Investigate and a two-test format (build, test, improve one thing, test again). Exit tickets, self-assessments, year-end portfolio. 2nd Grade STEM Journal (251 pages) — 36 challenges, 6 pages each. Adds three design ideas before choosing one, repeated trials, blank graph grids, and evidence-with-numbers prompts. 36 exit tickets, 6 unit self-assessments. 3rd Grade STEM Investigator's Journal (253 pages) — 36 investigations, 6 pages each. Adds testable questions, independent/dependent/controlled variables, typical values, and claim–evidence–reasoning–limitations. Teacher notes and pacing guide included. 4th Grade STEM Designer's Journal (324 pages) — 36 projects, 8 pages each. Adds client briefs, budgets with running totals, weighted decision matrices, measurable criteria, and cost-per-performance analysis. 5th Grade STEM Innovator's Journal (397 pages) — 36 projects, 10 pages each. Adds stakeholder analysis, test protocols, trade-off curves, optimization ("what did your design make worse, and why was that worth it?"), one-page technical summaries, flowchart and pseudocode practice, innovator badges, and a capstone showcase. Across the bundle: 216 weekly challenges and roughly 1,370 student journal pages, plus exit tickets, self-assessments, and year-end portfolio pages at every grade from 1st up. The Challenges The same six-unit arc runs through every grade — Engineering Design, Materials/Matter, Forces & Motion or Energy, Life Science, Earth & Weather/Space, and Engineering for Communities. A few examples: K: Tower Power · A Chair for Teddy · Three Little Houses · Bridge for a Toy Car · Magnet Movers · Playground Designers 1st: Towers, bridges, boats, balloon-powered cars, weather instruments, erosion barriers, signal devices 2nd: Stronger bridge, water filter, marble run, parachute, pollinator garden, water-saving device 3rd: Solar oven, wind-powered vehicle, earthquake-resistant structure, model ecosystem, weather station 4th: Food packaging, renewable energy, communication networks, earthquake-resistant buildings, shelters, biomimicry 5th: Water purification, wind turbines, energy storage, Mars habitats, assistive technology, sustainable cities How It Works in the Classroom Each challenge runs on a five-session weekly rhythm (K uses a simpler single-session routine). Students carry one journal all year, so their thinking, sketches, data, and improvements stay together — a complete record of growth you can send home, use for conferences, or grade against a rubric. Two printing options at every grade: print and bind the whole journal once, or print just that week's 3–10 pages to cut copying costs and let you skip or reorder weeks freely. How the Process Grows K — Ask · Imagine · Build · Share (3 pages/week): count and compare results 1st — adds Investigate, Test, Improve (5 pages/week): change one thing, test again 2nd — adds Plan (6 pages/week): three ideas, trials, graphs, numbers as evidence 3rd — adds Create, Analyze (6 pages/week): variables, fair tests, claim–evidence–reasoning 4th — 8-step design cycle (8 pages/week): clients, budgets, decision matrices, measurable criteria 5th — 10-step innovation cycle (10 pages/week): trade-offs, optimization, technical summaries, pseudocode What Students Practice, K–5 Observing, building, and sharing (K) → predicting, testing twice, and comparing (1st) → generating multiple ideas, running trials, graphing, and explaining with numbers (2nd) → controlling variables and writing claim–evidence–reasoning (3rd) → budgeting, scoring options, and writing measurable criteria (4th) → optimizing across trade-offs and communicating a recommendation someone could act on (5th). By Week 36 of 5th Grade, students independently define a problem, research it, run all ten steps, and report a result. Format 6 PDF files, 1,588 pages total Print-and-go; designed for whole-journal binding or week-by-week printing Teaching duration: 1 full school year per grade Materials for the challenges are everyday classroom supplies Pairs With the K–5 STEM Curriculum The journals contain the student pages. The teacher-facing lesson plans for every weekly challenge are in the grade-level STEM Full-Year Curricula, sold separately or together in the K–5 STEM Curriculum Bundle. Every journal is also usable on its own — the criteria, constraints, data structures, and prompts are printed on the student pages. Want the student-facing challenge cards too? See the K–5 STEM Challenge Cards Bundle. Want everything for all six grades? The K–5 STEM Mega Bundle includes the journals, curricula, challenge cards, and every other grade-level STEM resource in the store. Why Buy the Bundle Six journals bought separately cost $84.00. This bundle is $58.80 — and gives a STEM specialist, a grade-level team, or a whole elementary building one documented engineering progression from the first tower in Kindergarten to the final technical summary in 5th Grade. Ask. Imagine. Build. Test. Improve. Communicate — and write it all down.
$58.80
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2nd Grade STEM Bundle | Full-Year Engineering Activities
2nd Grade STEM Bundle | Full-Year STEM Curriculum | Engineering Activities, Projects, Task Cards & More Make STEM learning engaging, hands-on, and easy to plan all year long with this comprehensive 2nd Grade STEM Curriculum Bundle! This collection brings together multiple formats of age-appropriate STEM and engineering activities designed to help second grade students explore, create, problem-solve, test ideas, and think like young engineers. With a full-year curriculum, challenge cards, STEM journals, projects, task cards, early-finisher activities, and substitute plans included, this 2nd Grade STEM Bundle gives teachers a flexible collection of resources for instruction, enrichment, independent practice, and unexpected classroom needs. What's Included This bundle includes 7 second grade STEM resources: • STEM Curriculum — 36 weekly challenges across 6 units, 5 sessions each • STEM Journal — 180 student recording pages • Challenge Cards — 96 student-facing cards including 36 Level Up extensions • STEM Projects — 6 unit capstones plus 12 standalone mini-projects • Task Cards — 80 math, science and coding skill cards • Early Finishers — 40 no-prep challenges with choice board and bin labels • Sub Plans — 12 emergency lessons with word-for-word scripts Together, these resources provide multiple ways to introduce, practice, apply, document, and extend STEM and engineering learning throughout the school year. How It Works in the Classroom Use this 2nd Grade STEM Curriculum Bundle for: • Daily or weekly STEM instruction • Engineering design challenges • STEM centers and stations • Whole-group lessons • Small-group activities • Hands-on STEM projects • Independent practice • STEM journals and reflection • Early-finisher activities • Substitute teacher plans • STEM enrichment and extension • Flexible classroom activities Use the curriculum for structured STEM instruction, challenge cards and task cards for shorter learning experiences, projects for hands-on application, journals for recording and reflecting on learning, and early-finisher resources for meaningful extension. Standards & Learning Goals Students develop foundational STEM and engineering skills through engaging, age-appropriate activities, including: Engineering Design • Identifying problems and needs • Brainstorming possible solutions • Designing and building • Testing ideas • Evaluating results • Improving designs Problem-Solving • Thinking creatively • Using logical reasoning • Trying different approaches • Learning from unsuccessful attempts • Making decisions and solving challenges STEM Thinking • Observing and investigating • Asking questions • Making predictions • Exploring cause and effect • Applying knowledge to real-world challenges Communication & Reflection • Explaining ideas and solutions • Sharing designs • Recording observations • Reflecting on challenges • Describing ways to improve a solution Why Teachers Love It * Uses common classroom and recycled materials — full materials list included * Complete second grade STEM resource collection * Seven complementary STEM resources in one bundle * Full-year engineering activities * Multiple ways to teach and practice STEM * Supports hands-on learning and creativity * Builds problem-solving and critical-thinking skills * Includes curriculum, projects, task cards, challenge cards, and journals * Provides meaningful early-finisher activities * Includes substitute teacher plans * Flexible for whole-group, small-group, center, and independent learning * Saves valuable planning time This 2nd Grade STEM Bundle gives teachers a ready-to-use collection they can pull from throughout the school year. Whether you need a structured lesson, a quick challenge, a hands-on engineering project, an independent task, an early-finisher activity, or a substitute plan, you'll have a STEM resource ready to go. Download Today Add this 2nd Grade STEM Curriculum Bundle to your classroom and give students a full year of opportunities to explore, design, build, test, problem-solve, and think like engineers! With multiple resource formats included, you can keep STEM learning fresh and flexible while giving second graders meaningful opportunities to develop creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and engineering skills.
$49.00
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