K - 5 STEM Challenge Cards Bundle | Full-Year Engineering Activities

K–5 STEM Challenge Cards Bundle | 554 Print-and-Go Engineering Challenge Cards | Full Year, Every Grade

216 weekly engineering challenges — one for every week of the school year in Kindergarten through 5th Grade — plus 338 extension, discussion, and quick-build cards. Print, cut, laminate, and you’re set for the year.

These are the student-facing cards that put the problem, criteria, and constraints directly in students’ hands so they can check their own designs against the specification instead of asking “Is this allowed?” Every challenge runs on materials you already have: cups, straws, tape, paper, string, blocks.

What’s Included

Six complete grade-level card sets (216 pages, 554 cards):

Kindergarten STEM Picture Cards (60 cards) — picture-based challenges for pre-readers, plus Ask/Imagine/Build/Share step cards, 8 tool-bin labels, and 12 sorting cards
1st Grade STEM Challenge Cards (96 cards) — 36 weekly challenges, 36 Level Up extensions, 12 Engineer Talk cards, 12 Quick Builds
2nd Grade STEM Challenge Cards (98 cards) — adds required trial counts and data-recording prompts on every weekly card
3rd Grade STEM Challenge Cards (98 cards) — adds independent variables, efficiency calculations, and an unplugged coding strand
4th Grade STEM Challenge Cards (100 cards) — adds client scenarios and budgets to every challenge
5th Grade STEM Challenge Cards (102 cards) — adds optimization/trade-off focus, flowchart and pseudocode keys
Across the bundle: 216 Weekly Challenge Cards, 180 Level Up Cards, 60 Quick Build Cards, and 98 process, sentence-stem, team-role, tool, and sorting cards.

What the Challenges Look Like

The same six-unit structure runs through every grade — Engineering Design, Materials/Matter, Forces & Motion or Energy, Life Science, Earth & Weather/Space, and Engineering for Communities — with the challenge growing up alongside the student:

K: A Chair for Teddy · Ramp Racers · Boats Afloat · Rain Shelter · Stop the Flood
1st: Windproof House · Balloon-Powered Car · Seed Dispersal Device · Erosion Barrier · Pulley Power
2nd: Design a Water Filter · Marble Run Grand Prix · Design a Parachute · Pollinator Garden Model · Design for Everyone
3rd: Create a Solar Oven · Wind-Powered Vehicle · Earthquake-Resistant Structure · Model Ecosystem · Engineering for Water Access
4th: Solar and renewable energy · Communication systems · Erosion protection · Biomimicry · Product design
5th: Water purification · Wind turbines · Energy grids · Mars habitats · Assistive technology · Sustainable cities
Every Weekly Card Provides

The driving question
Criteria — what the design must accomplish
Constraints — the limits students work within
A prediction prompt
From 2nd Grade up: required trials and what data to record
From 4th Grade up: a client scenario and a budget
How It Works

Post the weekly card in your Build Zone and leave it there for the whole challenge. Level Up cards go to pairs who meet the criteria early — each one introduces a competing goal (stronger and lighter, faster and carries more cargo), not just “build another one.” Talk cards stay posted all year and give students the language to explain evidence and disagree using data. Quick Build cards are ten-minute, no-prep challenges for indoor recess, morning work, or a sub day.

Skills Progression K–5

Students move from observing, building, and sharing (K) → identifying criteria and constraints and changing one variable at a time (1st–2nd) → planning fair tests, calculating ranges and efficiency, and graphing results (3rd) → working within budgets for a client and calculating rates and cost-effectiveness (4th) → optimizing across trade-offs and communicating with flowcharts and pseudocode (5th). The card system is built to shift students from “Is this allowed?” to “Let me check the specification.”

Format

6 PDF files, 216 pages total
4 cards per page (2 per page for Kindergarten), designed for cardstock and lamination
Color-coded borders match the unit structure in the companion curricula
Teaching duration: 1 full school year per grade
Pairs With the K–5 STEM Curriculum

These are the student-facing cards. The teacher-facing lesson plans for each weekly challenge are in the grade-level STEM Full-Year Curricula, sold separately or together in the K–5 STEM Curriculum Bundle. Each card set also includes 60+ extension, discussion, and quick-build cards that are not in the curriculum.

Want everything for one grade? See the individual grade-level STEM Bundles. Want everything for all six? The K–5 STEM Mega Bundle includes these cards, the curricula, and more.

Why Buy the Bundle

Six sets bought separately cost $29.94. This bundle is $19.99 — and gives a STEM specialist or a whole elementary building one consistent challenge system from Kindergarten to 5th Grade.

Predict. Build. Test. Improve — every week, every grade.