Naomi Meredith-The Elementary STEM Coach

Having durable and fun toys for my sensory tables when I’m creating for my preschool STEM groups is important so I can use everything over and over again 😊

➡️ Link in the captions!

These toys are so strong and realistic! My littles loved naming the ocean animals with me since there are some unique ones they didn’t know yet!

Such a great find for small toys by Safari Ltd that will help me create a variety of sensory bins throughout the year!

Have you tried any of these?! 😅 I want to be good at them, but not every STEM project is my project.

I love trying new things, but I’m also ok with letting things go if it’s not a good fit.

The most magical 10 minutes trimmed to less than 2 minutes. 🥺🦋😍

My kids in this at-home daycare group (ages 2-4) learned all about different kinds of pollinators this past month: bees, butterflies & ladybugs. 🐝 🦋 🐞

To bring the science to life, we watched the life cycle of a butterfly using the kit.

So proud that all 5 survived! 🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋

If you’re in the Parker, Lone Tree or Centennial area this summer, try and stop by for a STEM session when my mobile STEM classroom trailer is out!

One lesson will be butterflies! 🦋

I need to print a big batch of animals so I’m prepared for the new year 😅

➡️ Comment with the word “prize” and I’ll send you the links to everything I used and the print files!

Here are some tips for when I created this:

✅ grab the print file of all the baby animals. It’s so much faster to have them all in one place.

✅ decide which baby animals you want for each color. I started making a Google Doc to keep track of mine. I did one solid color, but up to you if you want multiprint!

✅ test print a few animals before going all out to make sure they are the right size for the capsules

✅ for the actual machine, I also had to resize the original file so it would fit my printer. Make sure to save because you need everything to be proportional!

✅ use a bit of plastic glue (I linked my fav) to keep all the vending machine pieces together

✨ Tag me when you make yours! I want to see how they turn out!

I printed this machine and animals on my P1S and used for all the different colors.

💙 I used Overture’s white PLA for the baby animals and machine.

🐱Baby Animals STLs found on Etsy

🍬Capsule Machine Credit: burakeser07 on

🔮Plastic Capsules for animals by .store

🔗Materials Links: